Apple-Rhubarb Galette

I’d forgotten about my liking for rhubarb until last Saturday morning, when I happened upon a stack of gorgeous ruby-pink bunches of it at the farmers’ market. I had no idea what I would do with it, but I couldn’t pass it up, and so bought two pounds – enough for whatever concoction might present itself back home in my kitchen.

I grew up on my grandmother’s strawberry-rhubarb jam and pie, which were favorites. And so, as I rifled through cookbooks, searching for the perfect use for my pile of rhubarb stalks, I expected to land on something involving strawberries. I was surprised to discover that according to Deborah Madison of Local Flavors, rhubarb and apples are good companions, too. Local Flavors boasts a recipe for Apple-Rhubarb Pandowdy using a basic recipe for galette pastry to make the pandowdy crust. This, however, got me thinking about galettes rather than the pandowdy.

If you know me, you know how I feel about French things. French food, French architecture, French perfume, French literature, French coffee, French films (notice how my profile picture has a Paris backdrop Photoshopped in). It’s good thing Eli, who speaks French, doesn’t toss out French words and phrases more often – I’m a sucker for the sound of the spoken language. I think if I were angry with him, and he started speaking French, I would probably just melt and promptly forget whatever I was mad about. Anyway, of course I love French pastries, and the prospect of an apple-rhubarb galette was irresistible.

By some definitions, a galette is a crepe or a thin buckwheat pancake filled with fruit, eggs, meat, or other delicious things, and the edges are folded up to keep the filling in. By other definitions, a galette is a rustic sort of pie, again, with the edges folded up to keep the filling in. The second variation is what I was going for.

I happened to have a small pile of “wintered over” (soft but still sound) apples saved from my fall apple-picking ventures, relegated to for-cooking-only status, and figured it was time to use them up. So I made pastry, peeled and sliced apples, trimmed and cut up one pound of my glossy pink rhubarb, added sugar and vanilla, made pastry dough, and about an hour later, was pulling my first galette from the oven. It turned out beautifully, but even more important, it tasted wonderful. The sweet, soft apples and tart, tender rhubarb complemented each other perfectly. The pastry was sweet, buttery, and flaky, just as French pastry should be (I think this pastry may in fact become my default pie crust recipe).

I served it warm, with a scoop – or two – of vanilla ice cream on the side (because there have to be “equal parts ice cream and pie,” sayeth Eli), but whipped cream or vanilla yogurt would be good, too.

Apple-Rhubarb Galette

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

For the pastry:

1-1/2 cups unbleached flour
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons sugar
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into dice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
up to 1/4 cup ice water

Whisk together flour, salt, and sugar. Place in the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter, and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the vanilla, then the ice water, a teaspoonful at a time, until the dough forms and sticks together. Work together gently by hand and shape into a flat disk. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate 20-30 minutes, until chilled and slightly firm but not hard. On a flour-covered surface, roll out into a large circle, about 1/8″ thick. Place on a flat pan (a round pizza pan works well) with a raised lip (in case there is any juice leakage during baking).

For the filling:

4 large sweet apples, such as Gala, peeled, cored, and sliced
1 pound rhubarb, washed, trimmed, and cut into 1-1/2″ pieces
2 tablespoons flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 cup raw sugar, agave nectar, raw honey, or maple syrup

Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl. Heap the filling into the center of the pastry circle, leaving a 1-1/2″ to 2″ edge. Gently, fold the edge up all the way around, pleating the pastry as you go. If desired, brush with egg white.

Bake 30 minutes at 400 degrees, then lower the heat to 350 degrees and bake 20-30 minutes more, until apples are tender. During the second half of baking, use a turkey baster to baste the fruit with its own juices every 15 minutes or so.