Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette

Another seasonal recipe - this would have been good for Thanksgiving, but will be equally good for any upcoming holiday parties or open houses. Given that the key ingredients are butternut squash and onions, with a healthy amount of cheese thrown in for good measure, this galette can be a reliable stand-by for the rest of the winter.

Believe it or not, this recipe is NOT from Food52 (gasp!) but from another favorite of mine. Deb has a number of good galette/tart recipes on her site, so it's definitely worth checking out if you are looking to make something that's hearty enough to hold its own for a weeknight dinner for two and also appropriate as a starter when you are expecting company.

Two main notes about this recipe. One - it does require some prep (peel, chop up, and roast the squash, slice and caramelize the onions) - but as Deb points out, you can do that ahead of time and then the assembly time for the galette itself close to the guests' arrival is minimal. (Though it does help when you have a very nice helper for doing some of this peeling/chopping.) Two - if you are like me and the idea of making the galette dough, with all of its advance planning (one hour in the freezer, another hour in the fridge), stresses you out (you also have to do the squash and onions!), just don't do it. I used Pepperidge Farm's puff pastry, and didn't think the final result at all suffered from this stress-relieving shortcut.

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

For the pastry:
1 sheet Pepperidge Farm puff pastry

For the filling:
1 small butternut squash (about one pound)*
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 to 2 tablespoons butter
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced in half-moons
1 teaspoon salt
Pinch of sugar
¾ cup fontina cheese (about 2½ ounces), grated or cut into small bits**
1½ teaspoons chopped fresh sage leaves

*Don't worry if yours is bigger - any leftover squash/onion/cheese mixture that doesn't fit into the galette is delicious on its own later.
**We happened to use smoked fontina (regular was nowhere to be found), which gave the galette a suspiciously delicious bacon-y taste.

1. Thaw one sheet of puff pastry according to the directions on the package.

2. Prepare squash: Preheat oven to 375°F. Peel squash, then halve and scoop out seeds. Cut into a ½-inch dice. Toss pieces with olive oil and a half-teaspoon of the salt and roast on foil-lined sheet for 30 minutes or until pieces are tender, turning it midway if your oven bakes unevenly. Set aside to cool slightly.

3. Caramelize onions: While squash is roasting, melt butter in a heavy skillet and cook onion over low heat with the remaining half-teaspoon of salt and pinch of sugar, stirring occasionally, until soft and lightly golden brown, about 20 minutes.

4. Raise the oven temperature to 400°F. Mix squash, caramelized onions, cheese and herbs together in a bowl.

5. Assemble galette: On a floured surface, roll out the thawed sheet of puff pastry (don't make it unreasonably thin). Transfer to an ungreased baking sheet. Spread squash, onions, cheese and herb mixture over the dough, leaving a 1½-inch border. Fold the border over the squash, onion and cheese mixture, folding the corner edges over each other. The center will be open.

6. Bake until golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from the oven, let stand for 5 minutes, then slide the galette onto a serving plate. Cut into wedges and serve hot, warm or at room temperature.

Cheese Thins

For certain (bigger) occasions, I feel like it's more appropriate to bring something homemade, rather than a bottle of wine (our more standard offering). In this case, we were asked to bring at most an appetizer, so I went with these cheese thins - they show up in both Chocolate and Zucchini and Amanda Hesser's Essential New York Times Cookbook (if you haven't noticed, I am a big fan of Amanda Hesser's endeavors).

Amanda Hesser's recipe suggests rolling out the dough and cutting it into strips, however I like Clotilde's method of rolling the dough into logs and slicing them into half-moon crackers (especially since rolling out dough is extra inconvenient with our kitchen's tiled counters). These were cheesy and tasty, a nice way to tide yourself over before the real meal begins.

Cheese Thins
Adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini

6 oz good quality hard cheese, finely grated (e.g. comté)
4 tablespoons butter, also grated
¾ cup flour
¼ teaspoon sea salt, plus more for sprinkling
a dash milk or cream, as needed (see below)

1. Combine the cheese, butter, flour, and salt in a food processor and pulse until the ingredients come together to form a dough. If the mixture seems too dry and crumbly to come together into a ball, add a dash of milk or cream until it does.

2. Shape the dough into a log or another sliceable shape, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until firm enough to be easily sliced, about an hour, and up to a day. (Or you can place the dough in the freezer for 20 minutes.)

3. Preheat the oven to 360°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

4. Remove the dough from the fridge, slice it thinly, and arrange the slices on the prepared sheet (they will expand a little, so give them just a bit of elbow room). You will need to work in batches; return the dough to the fridge between batches.

5. Bake for 10 to 14 minutes, depending on your oven and the thickness of your slices, until golden. Let the cheese thins rest on the baking sheet for a minute before transferring them to a cooling rack. Taste when cool, and adjust the baking time accordingly for subsequent batches.

Fig and Blue Cheese Savories

We went to a going-away cocktail party recently (the kind where the hosts are trying to put to good use all of the alcohol they can't/don't feel like moving to their new place), and while we were asked not to bring additional wine/beer, we were invited to bring snacks. I wanted to do something bite-size, non-sweet, and easy, since we were also hosting out-of-town friends that weekend.

The easy part was slightly questionable only because our current kitchen has tiled counters, so rolling any type of dough is always a bit of a challenge. (I ended up doing it on a big bamboo cutting board. Special thanks to Mihai who made the indentations and placed the fig jam filling while I struggled to roll out the dough and cursed whoever came up with the idea of tiled counters.) If you aren't plagued with tiled counters however, this is a great recipe since the dough otherwise comes together very quickly in a food processor.

Word of warning: if you are serving this at a party, it may make sense to create some sort of sign for what this is - Mihai and I thought these were really tasty, as did some of the other party guests, but apparently those who were expecting a sweet cookie were in for a bit of a surprise.

Fig and Blue Cheese Savories
Adapted from Food52

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup butter, room temperature
4 oz blue cheese, crumbled
Ground black pepper
Fig preserves, about 3 tablespoons

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Place the flour, butter, blue cheese and a few grinds of black pepper in the bowl of a food processor. Process until the dough just comes together and starts to form a ball.

3. Lay out a couple of sheets of plastic (saran) wrap, so that they overlap and form a large surface. Lightly flour the plastic, dump the dough on top of it, and knead a few times to pull the dough together. Sprinkle some more flour on top of the dough and cover with another sheet (or two) of saran wrap. Now roll the dough under the second surface of plastic wrap with a rolling pin until it's roughly ⅛ inch thick. If you have tiled counters, the plastic wrap method is the only thing that'll keep you from tearing out your hair when you have to roll out dough (thanks, Amanda!). Even if you have nice, smooth counters, I am sure this method is extremely helpful.

4. Cut rounds out of the dough with a floured 1-inch cutter (we used a shot glass) and transfer the rounds to the parchment-lined baking sheet.

5. Using the non-spoon end of a wooden spoon, make an indentation in the top of each dough round. Spoon about ¼ teaspoon of fig preserves into each indentation, using your finger to push the preserves as best as possible into the indentations.

6. Bake the savories for 10 – 14 minutes, until the preserves are bubbling and the pastry is light golden on the bottom.

7. Let cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes, then remove to a plate (or wire rack if you have one) to cool some more.

2007 Holiday Party: Savory Food

For the savory snacks for our holiday party, we had four things: walnut, pear, and roquefort madeleines, salmon rillettes, mushroom caviar, and crudités. Unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures of the last three things on that list, and so all I have is a picture of the madeleines. These madeleines were an interesting idea, but I am not sure I'd make them again. I will definitely make the salmon rillettes and mushroom caviar again, and crudités are always a fun, easy addition (ours were with cucumber, baby carrots, and radishes this time).

Salmon Rillettes
Adapted from David Lebovitz

8 oz (250 g) pieces of salmon, bones removed
salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped chives
4 oz (125 g) smoked salmon, cut into thin strips, then cut into ½-inch pieces

1. Season the salmon on both sides lightly with a bit of salt. Steam in a steamer basket until just cooked, about 8 minutes. Once cooked, remove from heat and let cool.

2. In a medium-sized bowl, mash together with a fork the butter and the olive oil until very smooth. (This is very important; otherwise there'll be big chunks of butter in the finished rillettes.)

3. Stir in the lemon juice, then the chopped chives and smoked salmon.

4. Remove the skin from the salmon and flake the cooked salmon over the mixture, then fold the pieces of salmon into the rillette mixture. Season with salt, if necessary.

5. Scrape into a serving dish, cover, and chill for at least two hours. Let come to room temperature before serving.

Storage: The rillettes can be made up to two days before and refrigerated. They can also be frozen, well-wrapped, for up to two months.

Mushroom Caviar
Adapted from Simply Recipes

3 tablespoons butter
½ lb cremini mushrooms, wiped clean and finely chopped
Salt (and pepper)
½ cup of minced shallots
1 tablespoon dry white wine
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons pine nuts
2 tablespoon sour cream
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1. Melt butter in a large skillet on high heat. Add the mushrooms and shallots. Sauté for 5 minutes stirring frequently.

2. While the mushrooms are cooking, heat a small skillet on high heat. Add the pine nuts. Cook, stirring frequently, until they begin to get a little toasted. (Keep your eyes on the nuts, they can burn pretty quickly.) As soon as they begin to toast, remove the pan from the heat and put the pine nuts into a small bowl. Set aside.

3. While the mushrooms are cooking, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Once they have cooked for about 5 minutes, add the garlic and a tablespoon of dry white wine. Cook for an additional minute and remove from heat. Put mushroom mixture in a bowl, add the toasted pine nuts, and set aside to cool.

4. Once the mushrooms have cooled down a bit, mix in the lemon juice, sour cream, and parsley. Add more salt and pepper, if needed, to taste. Chill before serving.

Serve with crackers or baguette slices.

Makes about 1½ cups. Serves four. (I was afraid this would not be enough and so I doubled all of the ingredients - that was entirely unnecessary, unless you want to make enough caviar for two parties.)