Day 161: my first galette
That's right. I have neither made nor eaten a galette before. If truth be told, I never really saw the point of them. I don’t mean to offend, they're actually bloody gorgeous; I suppose I just didn’t see the point of not making a pie or a tart (if you have a tart/flan tin), especially when you have to make, rest and roll pastry anyway. I now appreciate they have charm and come with history and evolution. I’ll not delve into that here; I’m sure you’re capable of using a searching engine or looking it up in a book, yourself! Food history is a fascinating topic and I’ll be reading more on them myself, that’s for sure.
I have fond memories of picking blackberries and coming back with bagfuls/tupperware boxfuls of gleaming fruit, smiles and purple-stained hands, from childhood right through to recent adulthood. This year, however, I think we left it a little too late! The brambles were already hardening, pricking us in the fingers and scraping our arms with even more intent than their younger selves would in August, and it was very much a case of cycling a metre, picking two berries, cycling another metre, picking a few more, and so on. We just about got a small food bag’s-worth, which was plenty to go ahead with Nigella’s Blackberry Galette (the only reason we went picking for them in the first place!).
Nigella’s Blackberry Galette
In absence of a food processor - I still haven’t replaced my last one since it met its end at the crust of an over-stale piece of sourdough (Nigella’s No-Knead Bread, to be precise) - I used hands. It was rather warm on Sunday, very humid, so I did struggle a little; I barely needed 1tsp of the ice-cold water to bind it all together.
I got a little carried away with the piling on of the sweet blackberries and the tangy creme fraiche, but - what can I say - I like my filling like I like my sauce: in plenty!
Flavour musings
It baked beautifully and oozed gorgeously purple - and I love the nubbly crunch of that heavenly short, cornmeal pastry. A tangy-sweet creamy filling/topping flecked with the sweetness of sun-ripened blackberries, fresh from the British countryside.
