Gettin' Figgy With It: Galette with Fresh Homegrown Figs
A few weeks ago, I was watching an episode of Netflix’s The Chef Show featuring Jon Favreau and Chef Roy Choi and was inspired by the peach galette they made with Evan Kleiman. I was hungry and ready for my midnight snack two hours ahead of schedule, and I made a mental note to make my first fruity pizza (er…galette) soon.
Fast forward to last week when my mom and I were admiring our blessedly fertile fig tree, I miraculously refrained from eating them all in one sitting and decided to save the harvested figs for a recipe.
I found the recipe for a galette at NYT Cooking, and I modified it slightly based on what I had at home (as I always do). Here is my modified version—
The Dough
1 1/3 cups of all-purpose flour
1 tbsp sugar
a pinch of salt
1 large egg
1-2 tbsp of heavy cream or milk (might not need it)
1 stick of unsalted butter, cut into little cubes
The Filling
6-7 fat figs
1/4 to 1/3 cup of brown sugar (depending on how sweet you want it)
1 small lemon, juiced (about 2 tbsp of juice)
Recipe
Let’s start with the dough. In a measuring beaker like this one, beat the egg. We want the liquid to be 1/3 cup, so if your egg isn’t at 1/3 cup when beaten, add a tad bit of milk to get it there. Whisk a bit more.
In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, and salt). Add the cold butter cubes and mix it all up, smushing the butter with your thumb and fingers. You still want there to be small chunks of butter, but it should be fully incorporated into the flour mixture.
Pour most of the egg (and cream/milk?) into the flour mixture, but leave a decent amount for brushing over the galette later. Mix it up. It’ll still be chunky and very unlike bread dough.
Sprinkle some flour over a sheet of parchment paper and smack the blob of galette dough onto it. Flatten it into a fat disk/circle and top with another sheet of parchment paper. Let the dough chill for at least 2 hours to relieve its anxiety.
While the dough is chilling…
Rinse your figs and slice them up, not too thin! I accidentally sliced my figs vertically, but you’ll want to slice them horizontally (for bigger, more even circles). Enjoy my diagram example.
Put the fig slices in a small bowl and sprinkle the brown sugar over them. Pour in the lemon juice and mix gently (but thoroughly) with a metal spoon, carefully scraping along the bowl but not mushing the figs.
Pop in the fridge until you’re ready to revisit the dough.
When the dough’s nearly done with therapy…
Galettes are like pies without the top crust, or pizza without the savory. They’re easy to make and fun to customize!
Preheat your oven to 375°F.
Take the dough out of the fridge and, with both sheets of parchment paper still attached, begin gently rolling the dough out to a 12” circle. More important than the diameter/roundness is the thickness of the dough. You want to roll out the dough so that it’s 1/4 inch thick throughout the circle.
Transfer to a baking sheet and take off the top layer of parchment paper.
Carefully spoon the fig filling into the center of the rolled-out dough, leaving a 1 1/2 inch border to close up the galette later. Spread the figs out so that they’re in somewhat even layers.
Pleat or pinch the borders toward the center of the galette, kind of like an open dumpling. Like the rest of this recipe, this step doesn’t have to be perfect. Asymmetrical work makes us human!
Brush the pastry crust with the remaining egg mixture. Pop it in the oven for a total of about 25 minutes. Check the galette at the 15 minute mark to see how the crust is progressing. I checked mine every 5 minutes after the 15 minute mark. Take out the galette when the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbly.
Let it cool a bit before serving. If your filling still looks a bit liquidy, do not fret! It will thicken as it sets (which is why I was fine without the cornstarch in the original recipe).
Enjoy!!!
