I love galettes. They taste as good as pie, are so much easier to make and in my opinion they’re the best use of butter. The butter I had on hand was European butter. Ratatouille is the most French home-cooked dish I can think of. Enter, the Ratatouille Galette.

Towards the end of last year, Butter of Europe reached out to me and a handful of food influencers in the UAE to indulge in a very fun and friendly competition of sorts. Butter of Europe is repped by Sopexa here, and that alone should summarize how well-curated their campaigns are. Nevermind commissioning influencers to create recipes because everyone does that, let’s make them go head to head and ask their followers to vote for whose recipe is better. Nothing will make said influencer go the extra mile more than then need to save face, haha! To make more fun, we got to pick our opponent. Because of course this was a friendly competition, I shared 3 names that I’d like to have done this with, and Butter of Europe paired me with one of them: my buddy Lavina Israni

We were both sent a mystery box of ingredients a day before D-Day, and therefore had to get creative very fast, only with the ingredients on hand. I wanted the butter to take centerstage, but of course, and the flour and plethora of winter vegetables jumped out at me and I knew right away that I would either make a Moroccan Tagine, or a Ratatouille Galette. A quick call and consultation with one of Dubai’s most decorated chef’s, Gregoire Berger, who I have the pleasure to call a friend confirmed that this could work, and thankfully most of my followers votes for the latter.

This recipe comprises of 3 main components:

1. A buttery shortcrust galette base.
2. A mushroom duxelles in lieu of the frangipane barrier that you’d normally have in a sweet galette. Mushroom duxelles (pronounced duck-sell) is an intensely flavored combination of finely chopped mushrooms, shallots, and fresh herbs such as thyme or parsley that are slowly cooked to a paste-like consistency.
3. Paper-thin, nearly equal diameter slices of 3-4 vegetables.

The most important component, without question, is the crust. I have a secret, you guys: sour cream. That’s right, skip the iced water, and do chilled sour cream instead. It’s fattier so it adds to the flakiness! Enough spoilers, here’s how you can make a very easy, foolproof galette crust:

Ingredients:

For the Shortcrust base:

Method:

1. In an electric food processor, pulse the flour, salt and 225 grams butter till it starts to resemble wet sand. DO NOT over-pulse! This crumbliness is what will lead to pockets of butter and hence a flakier shortcrust.
2. Pulse in the sour cream, and the mixture should still look like wet sand, albeit with bigger chunks, but make sure it doesn’t come together as a homogenous dough. I repeat, do not overpulse. 
3. Dump this mixture onto an approximately A1 sized cling film, and pull the cling film together into a tightly packed ball. You want to see those distinct specs of butter. Pop in the fridge for 2 hours.
4. In the mean time, start working on the rest. Dump the mushrooms and onion into a food processor and process until it’s all finely chopped. Dump it into a wide, shallow pan with the butter along with the rest of the ingredients for the duxelles, your seasonings (salt, pepper, terragon), and sauté until all the moisture evaporates and the mushrooms have nicely browned. Set aside and let it completely cool.
5. Slice all the vegetables using a mandolin, into even, 1cm thin slices.
6. Now, remove the short shortcrust dough from the fridge, and working quickly, roll it out between two sheets of parchment paper. You have to work quickly here as you don’t want the butter to melt, and avoid doing this in direct sunlight.
7. Leaving 3-4 inches on the edges of the shortcrust, spread the mushroom duxelles onto the base in a thin, even layer.
8. Starting from the very center, and alternating each type of vegetable, start arranging them in concentric circles, working your way outwards, as you would with a ratatouille.
9. Fold the edges we left empty, inwards, over the vegetables we have just arranged as ratatouille
10. Generously crack some salt and pepper onto the vegetables, and brush the whisked egg yolks onto the edges of the galette that you’ve folded in.
11. Put it back in the fridge for at least half an hour, and in the meantime, preheat your oven to 185 degrees
12. Bake for 40-60 mins till you’ve got a nice golden color on the crust.
13. Let it cool for 15-20 mins, cut into slices and enjoy your ratatouille galette!

Since you’re here, you might enjoy this recipe too!