Would an Oil Crust Work for a Galette?

[BakerAunt]

A Splendid Table email had a link to a recipe for Butternut Squash galette with Gruyere:

https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/butternut-squash-galette-with-gruyere?utm_campaign=TST_WNK_Newsletter_20191120&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sfmc_Weeknight%20Kitchen&utm_content=Shrooms%20and%20White%20Bean%20Scampi

I had just started making and loving fruit galettes when I had to transition to eating only small amounts of saturated fat. I've avoided galettes, but I saw this recipe today--which uses butternut squash, a favorite of mine, and I wondered if the oil crust that I posted here could work with it. The big issue that I see is that usually the crust gets par-baked, and I could not do that with a galette.

Any thoughts about whether this experiment has possibilities?

Note: I'd probably replace the spinach with kale, which is a better source of calcium,and the cheese with mozzarella, which is lower in saturated fat. The crème fraiche would be replaced with Greek yogurt, possibly adjusted to include a bit of milk.

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[Italiancook]

I don't know, BakerAunt, but I wonder if the oil in the crust would leech out & add too much oil to the baking galette. There's oiliness to the mozzarella.

[skeptic7]

A pizza type crust might work very well. I've done deep dish pizza which were more like quiches. The problem is that they have to be warmed up very carefully -- A microwave can harden the crust. The following recipe is now my basis for pizza and other things.
An oil based normal pie crust would probably work fairly well. Just don't prebake it.

Mine started out as this recipe but I now use all whole wheat and regular oil
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016715-whole-wheat-yeasted-olive-oil-pastry

[BakerAunt]

Thanks for your ideas, Italian Cook and Skeptic. After Thanksgiving, I will give this a try, using the crust recipe I've posted here. I've also considered putting it into a tart pan.

I had created a lovely part buckwheat galette crust the summer before I had to greatly limit butter. Sigh.

[skeptic7]

Baker Aunt;
Have you tried this yet? I like the look of it, and I would like to try it. I have a big Hubbard in my basement. I wish it explained why the squash should be precooked in the microwave -- its probably to reduce moisture the baking time is enough to cook it.

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--I still haven't had the chance to try it. I have the ingredients (well 2% cheese and kale rather than spinach), but it's for lunches for me, and other things needed eating. Maybe

I was thinking that the squash might be better roasted. I think that their instructions are to make it as easy as possible for the cook. I'm not sure about how they cook the greens and the squash. When I do make it, I may put the "galette" into a ceramic tart dish--just in case there are leaks. I have also toyed with the idea of pre-baking the crust a bit in that dish.

[skeptic7]

I made this Sunday, or to be accurate I made a sort of pie with this as inspiration. The most obvious change is I used a pizza dough crust and baked it in an 8 inch cast iron frying pan. The resulting pie was more like Chicago pizza pie than a galette since it was completely covered with crust.
I also used 4 cups, about 1 1/4 lbs of the Blue Hubbard squash instead of butternut squash. This was a yellow orange, not a vibrant orange color and rather bland tasting. I also used 8 ounces of frozen spinach, instead of baby spinach as it seemed such a waste to microwave and then cover baby spinach with cheese. The most important difference came with the cheese. I used left over ricota and cream cheese. These added up to about 3/4 of a cup combined so I blended them with an egg and some shredded parmesan for flavor. Oh I wasn't reading the recipe accurately so the egg went into the filling instead of glazing the top.
I cut the squash into medium dice, 1/2 inch square or a little smaller and then baked it in a single layer. When it was half cooked, I put the frozen spinach on top and continued baking. This thawed out the spinach and dried it and the squash nicely. When I took this out the spinach was dry but not crispy and the squash was mainly cooked without any liquid. I mixed this with the cheese mixture.
The whole wheat pizza dough was divided up, 2/3 for the bottom and 1/3 for the top. I rolled out the bottom and then let is sit for 15 minutes and rolled it out some more. I lined the frying pan with this and pressed it into place and pressed it to the sides until it reached the top. I rolled out the top. I placed the filling in the prepared frying pan, rerolled out the top and placed it on top of the filling.
I baked this at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes until the pizza crust part seemed cooked.
This turned out like a spinach pie with yellow chunks of pumpkin/squash. It is fairly tasty but needs something more sharp to give it flavor. Works nicely with cranberry chutney and the pumpkin curry soup.
I liked baking the pumpkin and spinach to dry them out and precook them, but that was because the oven was on anyway to roast the rest of the pumpkin, and its a cold winter day. If it was warmer the microwave would be faster and more comfortable. Also since its winter, I don't mind having to use the oven to reheat slices for lunch. A microwave would ruin the bread crust.
I won't be trying this again soon, but I wonder what it would be like with a hard cheese instead of the cream cheese and ricotta.

[BakerAunt]

Wow, Skeptic! You took the basic recipe and ran with it. I'm looking forward to trying my own rift on this recipe, but we had a lot of pie crust recently, so I'm giving it some time.

[BakerAunt]

When I first posted about this recipe on Nov. 23, 2019, I didn't think that it would take me until February 27, 2020 to get around to trying it. I decided that today (Thursday) was the day. It resulted in a rather late but tasty lunch.

I made the oil crust that I have posted here, except that I made only 75% of the recipe, and I used 3/4 c plus 2 Tbs. AP and 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (cut down on the Tbs. measuring, and I a bit more whole wheat is not a problem). After mixing up the dough, I rolled it out to 1/8th thickness and decided that it would not fold over like a galette after being refrigerated before it is filled, so I eased it into an 8 1/2 inch Emile Henry ceramic tart dish, folding over the sides to make it thicker around the inner rim. I refrigerated it for an hour, then blind baked it for 11 minutes.

While the crust was chilling, I made the filling. I had two small butternut squash. One was a pound and the other was 12 oz. I decided just to use both. After cutting them up, I microwaved them for 8 minutes--or so I tried to do. This microwave seems to do its own thing sometimes, and when I looked over at it, expecting it to be done soon, and saw 7 minutes, I knew something was amiss. Thankfully the squash did not overcook. I put the torn kale leaves on top of it, recovered it, and let it sit. I cooked the red onion, then stirred in the squash and kale and a heaping 1/8th tsp dried oregano. (My oregano did not have a lot of odor; it's quite old, since my husband does not care for the spice. I only got a hint of the flavor, but that is ok.) I didn't have crème fraiche, so I mixed together 1 Tbs. whole yogurt and 1 Tbs. 1% milk. I don't have sherry vinegar, so I used 1 tsp. sherry. I ground just a bit of salt over it, as well as some pepper. I replaced 3 oz. gruyere, which I'm sure is lovely in its saturated fat glory, with 28g (about 1/4 cup) pre-grated 2% cheese (only way I can get 2% around here), which I stirred in last.

I put the filling into the crust, hot from the oven, pressing it down. I used a coarse grater to top it with some Parmesan cheese. I then baked it for 40 minutes, let it cool for 10, and cut a slice for myself. It's tasty, and I think that it should warm up well. The seasonings blend quite nicely. I will keep my version of the recipe to make for lunches during the fall and winter when butternut squash is abundant.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by BakerAunt.

[skeptic7]

Congratulations. Do you like the way the microwave treated the kale?

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--I didn't microwave the kale. I just put it on top of the hot butternut squash, covered it, and let it sit. Kale wilts pretty quickly, and I didn't want to overcook it before it went into the oven.

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