Mango Galette
Remember the case of Ataulfo mangos I picked up ridiculously close to the day we left town for Tofino? They came with us, and were kind enough to ripen two or three at a time, so we’ve been eating them steadily all week. In salads, on oatmeal, on French toast, and straight up. But we’re down to our last few, and it occurred to me they’d make a mighty fine pie, in a peachy sort of way – full of flavour and not overly juicy, they didn’t require anything in the way of thickener. Nothing to make them stodgy – just fruit, the merest skiff of sugar, and crust.
Being without a pie plate turned out to be a good thing – it reminded me how ridiculouly simple free-form tarts are. (The fancy name for these is a galette.) All it requires of the cook is for him/her to roll out pastry dough into a rough circle, slide it onto a baking sheet, pile (or daintily arrange) sliced fruit or berries overtop, haphazardly fold the edges of the pastry over to contain said fruit, and bake. If you want to get fancy, you could brush the edges of the pastry with beaten egg and sprinkle it with sugar, or brush the fruit with warmed jelly. I did neither. I used a wine bottle to roll the pastry, and it was the easiest pie ever. It is the epitome of rustic – whomever first applied that word to food should win a nobel prize – you can be full-on sloppy with the rolling and the folding and it almost looks better for it.
The next morning we all nibbled on thin slices of it with our coffee; paired with the view, it was the best breakfast ever. (It might even be without the view – like the best kind of breakfast pastry, without the sweetness.)
Use any pastry recipe here. I tried one that has a particularly high ratio of butter to flour, making it sandy and shortbreadlike in texture.
Mango Galette
To make smaller individual galettes, divide the dough into howevermany pieces you’d like to make, and roll each piece into a circle. You won’t need as long a baking time.
Pastry:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3 Tbsp. (ish) ice water2-3 ripe mangos, peeled and sliced
sugar, to tasteIn a bowl or the bowl of a food processor, stir together the flour and salt; add the butter and blend with a fork or pastry cutter (or pulse with the food processor) until the mixture is crumbly, with pieces no bigger than a pea. (You don’t want the butter to be completely blended; some should be, with some pieces left bigger.) Add the ice water and stir just until the dough comes together, adding a little more of the dough is dry. Gather into a ball, flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for an hour or overnight.
Preheat oven to 375°F. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to about a 14″ circle (it doesn’t need to be perfect) and slide it onto a baking sheet. Place the mango in concentric circles on the dough, leaving a 1″-2″ border around the edge. Sprinkle the fruit with sugar (to taste – depending on how sweet your mangoes are) and fold the edges of the crust over the fruit, letting it fold wherever it wants to. If you like, brush the crust with a little beaten egg and sprinkle with more sugar – coarse, if you have it.
Bake for about 45 minutes, until golden. Let stand at least 10 minutes before serving; cut into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature. Serves 8.
April 11 2010 | dessert | 12 Comments »
