Apple galette or is it a tart?

One of the few cookbooks I open repeatedly is Julia and Jacques cooking at home. The book shows variations by two phenomenal cooks, helping one understand that there are many ways to go about making a dish. The book exudes such care and such joy in cooking that one cannot help but love it.

I made their recipe for apple galette many times. Even though I don't really need to go go back and look it up, I always do, mostly to enjoy the careful instructions for making a flaky crust.

One day, however, I rebelled and started to adjust the recipe to our current needs. No white flour was the main restriction. I learned quickly that freshly milled wheat flour worked great. I could use either soft (preferable) or hard wheat berries, and the crust was still amazing. At the end I settled on using freshly milled einkorn flour, both for the flavor and for working around gluten sensitivity. Namely, einkorn has a much simpler gluten than the regular wheat, and that seems to make einkorn much easier to digest.

My other change is to use a tart pan. I press the dough into the pan and avoiding rolling it. If I do want a more proper galette, I roll out the dough directly on parchment, make the galette on top of parchment, and then transfer the parchment with the galette directly on a baking sheet. This avoid so much mess and reduces the difficulty by an order of magnitude. 

Ingredients:

Crust

• 6 oz (170g) wheat flour. My recommendation is freshly milled whole einkorn, but almost any wheat flour would do. I recommend agains the awful store-bought whole wheat flout. 
• 1/2 (2.5 ml) tsp salt 
• 1/2 (2.5 ml) tsp sugar
• 3 to 4 oz (85g - 115g) cold unsalted butter cut into small chunks
• Optional: a pinch of ground cinnamon
• 2-3 TBS (30ml - 45ml) ice water

Filling:

• 3-4 apples, cored and cut into small chunks
• A pinch of ground cinnamon
• a handful of raisins and/or dry cranberries, optionally soaked in rum
• 1-2 TBS (15ml - 30ml) sugar
• 1/2 (120ml) cup apricot jam
• 2 TBS (30ml) or so Grand Mariner
• 1 TBS (15 ml) unsalted butter, cubed

Method    

1.  In a bowl of a food processor, pulse all ingredients for the crust apart from the water. Pulls about 5 times, just enough to make the dough look like a fine crumble.
1. The careful pulsing is needed to avoid waking up the gluten creation.
2. Add 2 TBS water, and pulse the food processor  3-4 times, a second per pulse. The dough should stuck together when pressed. For this recipe you can add some more water to the dough, but do not make the dough wet.
3. The dough is usable right away, and will be even nice after an hour in the fridge.
4. When ready, preheat the oven to 400F. 
5. Core and chop the apples. In a bowl, mix the apples with cinnanon, sugar, and (drained) raisins.
6. Take the dough out of the fridge and press it into a tart pan. I use either a 9 inch round pan, or a 14 x 5.75 inch rectangular pan. Use your fingers and make sure that the dough goes all the way up the tart pan.
7. Warm up the jam and mix it with Grand Mariner to make the glaze.
8. Spread about 1/2 of the glaze on the bottom.
9. Distribute the apple mixture over the crust, and dot with the 1 TBS butter
10. Bake for 50 minutes or until the crust is done and the apples are soft.
11. Reheat the remaining glaze and spread/brush it over the tart.
12. Take the tart/galette out of the pan and let it cool. A rack or even a wooden cutting board works well for me.

Explorations of Žganci Koroška Way AKA Flour Crumble

Žganci is a traditional Slovenian, and likely not only Slovenian, side dish, which is essentially flour boiled in salted water, crumbled, and then covered with zabela - pork cracklings sometimes mixed with cream. There is also a koroška way of making them. One ever so slowly heats flour in a pan, adds water gingerly in small quantities, and stirs the flour until the flour is cooked and forms small crumbles. Then one adds zabela. The flours used traditionally are wheat, buckwheat, or corn.

Jasna taught me how to make žganci the koroška way. She started to experiment with great success by replacing the water with a broth or even miso broth. We then started to use healthier kinds of fat, and we really liked the taste that olive oil brought to the dish. The next step was to add the oil before žganci were cooked, which contributed to a chewier and very satisfying texture. Finally, we realized that one can depart from the traditional flour selections. Millet flour has been a particular success.

Note that žganci are not most visually appealing on their own. Do not be fooled, the satisfying texture and flavor are likely to win you over. This is an old-style peasant side dish that really has the goal to add calories to one's day. The modern version presented here is much lighter and can add tremendously to a plate, combined with a sauce, hummus, scrambled eggs etc. Žganci make a terrific leftover, another good reason to make them.

I will admit, grudgingly, that I started to make žganci in a non-stick wok. I thought this would allow me to add the liquids much faster, and I can use much less olive oil. One day I mustered the courage and made žganci in a reasonably well seasoned carbon steel wok - no sticking, easy clean-up. Guess how I make them these days...

Ingredients:

• Flour: millet, buckwheat, corn, you can try whatever you want. Freshly milled is of course the best. I usually use about 5 heaping tablespoons for two people and have nice leftovers.
• Broth: vegetable, beef, miso, or salted water. About 1/2 cup - I always eyeball it.
• A pinch of salt, unless your broth is very salty.
• Olive oil, or any other tasty fat that you like.

Procedure:

1. Place a pan or a wok on a burner and set it to a low to medium-low heat.
2. Immediately add the flour. 
3. Mix occasionally until the flour heats up. Be careful not to burn the flour. You may sense a wonderful aroma coming from the flour.
4. Bring the broth to a simmer.
5. Add some oil to the flour and stir well, breaking apart large chunks. 
1. I find this step really enhances the flavor, and makes clean-up easier.
6. Add some broth and mix and stir immediately with a stiff spatula or cooking spoon. The flour will first form a few chunks, but will soon start breaking into pieces as you work through it.
7. If the flour mixture is still dry, keep adding the water/broth until all of the four has received some liquid. Make sure you do not drown the flour - you will then have cook the liquid out, and that will take quite some time, and you will be unlikely to get the crumbly texture.
8. Add a tablespoon or two of olive oil and keep stirring and breaking down the flour into small crumbles.
9. Žganci is done when the crumbles are small, they are cooked through and have a bit of a chewy texture. 
10. Optional: When the žganci is pretty much done (see below), you can add another TBS of oil and toast them a bit more for added texture.

The video below shows how I made žganci in a wok, with the commentary is in Slovenian. I think this was my first attempt at a POV video, with no script and with super amateur editing 🤣