People like to refer to that Julia Child quote about “never apologiz[ing]” for what happens in the kitchen. Now, not to put myself up there with the great one or anything, but I’ll just take that a step further and say that it’s good to also know how to promote what you plan to serve. Talk it up. Rave about the ingredients. Make your guest’s mouths water so they can’t wait to feast. And here’s one thing I find especially effective: bring up the old components whose greasy/on-the-verge-of-moldy behinds you managed to salvage by whipping them into the culinary concoction at hand.
Well, that last one doesn’t work for everybody. Fortunately, my friend Molly, who joined me for lunch on Wednesday, is a lady who appreciates a waste-free lunch, and would, I think, be just as sad as I am to see a handful of criminis, no matter how shriveled, fall to the mercy of the compost pile, especially if that pile resembled an algae swamp as ours does, rather than an earth renewal process. So she didn’t flinch when I described retrieving from the depths of the ice box the source of that odor at which Jake and I have wrinkled our noses all week and declared “something’s smelly in here.” Nor did she set down her fork even when I suggested that the cheeses had been rather “well-aged.” Before, I could get to the questionable lemon I juiced for the crust, she offered that the leeks had been new. Indeed they had–the one ingredient I bought just in time to help me use up all these leftovers.
We ate small slices of the resulting galette, kind of a rustic tart, and stalks of roasted asparagus on the front steps in the sunshine, serenaded by the sweet sounds of rap music drifting over from the glass studio. Hot food in the day time always feels like a bit of a luxury to me. Lunchtime is often a time to scrounge, to slap together pieces of bread, to reach for the the chips and salsa, or to eat the leftover that I’ve packed in my lunch. To have made something expressly for the purpose of eating at lunchtime, to eat it on a plate and be able to go back for seconds–well, it has the same excitement effect on me as weeknight baking: the feeling that I’m somehow getting away with a party on an otherwise ordinary day.
And yet, some days just call for this kind of lunch-y treatment. As we ate, I recalled to Molly how my childhood friend, Nicole, and I would sometimes get the urge to do something different for lunch. We generally turned to one of two solutions, both of which relied on the compliance of other neighborhood children. The first was to solicit a few dollars from everyone, including ourselves and order delivery pizza. The second, which we resorted to on our even more desperate days, was to call an impromptu potluck at the neighborhood park, with the prerequisite that anyone attending bring something edible. Perhaps we should have been more specific with our criterion, or at least vetted our invitees more thoroughly, because the resulting meals rarely met our hungry expectations. For years, we invited our neighbor Mary, whose parents were from China, with hopes that she might bring egg rolls. There may never have been an egg roll to speak of in Mary’s house, but we were set on the rather stereotyping assumption that they had to turn up in her clutches one of those days. Alas, most often she brought crab chips. And then there was Fionn, whose invites were allotted more cautiously once he arrived bearing co-op bags of bulk flax seed and bee pollen. To be fair, our contributions were probably at least as sorry–our interest was in finding ourselves a decent lunch, after all, and not actually in feeding the neighborhood children.
But, I share a little better now, and can readily access the grocery, so even when pickings are low, the neighbors are not my first resort. This is probably a good thing since I have a feeling some of them are surly: bolted iron gates and watch dog signs abound in these here parts.
I’m looking forward to trying this type of pastry in the future with other past-prime ingredients. In fact, I might even go as far as to recommend that you allow your mushrooms to dry in a paper bag in the refrigerator–their texture was a nice addition. Or you could take the easy route and just buy dried mushrooms.
“Just in time” Mushroom, Leek, and Goat Cheese Galette
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Crust:
11/4 cups all-purpose flour
a few cranks from the salt shaker
8 T. unsalted butter
1/4 cup whole milk yogurt
juice of one small lemon (about 2 tsp.)
1/4 cup very cold water
Filling:
2 T. salted butter
1 small leek, halved and sliced thinly (to equal about 1 cup)
3/4 lb. mushrooms, thinly sliced (if a small portion have been sitting in a paper bag in your refrigerator for the past month and you have to resuscitate them in boiling water, so be it)
1/2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1/2 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
1 clove garlic, chopped
about 5 oz. crumbly goat cheese (I used a mix of feta and chevre)
Combine flour and salt in a medium bowl. Place in the freezer along with the stick of butter for half an hour. When butter is sufficiently chilled, unwrap it and grate it into the flour mixture, fluffing lightly with fingers or a fork about every third of the stick to coat the shavings, and prevent butter lumpage. After the whole stick is grated, use a knife to finish mixing and break up the lumps a bit more. You want it to resemble a course meal.
In a smaller bowl whisk together the yogurt, lemon juice, and ice water. Make a well in the center of the flour/butter mixture and add half of the wet mixture. Mix with fingers gently until large lumps form. Remove the lumps and hold them in your non-dominant hand, as you use your other hand to pour the rest of the wet mixture into the flour, and then mix again with fingers to incorporate most of the dry ingredients. Smack these new lumps onto the old lumps to make one giant lump/ball, do not over handle, and cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least half an hour.
To make the filling, melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the leeks and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the thyme, rosemary, and garlic and saute for another minute, until it begins to smell herb-y. Raise the heat to high or med-high and add the mushrooms. Cook until soft, mixing occasionally, about 6-8 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
Roll out crust into a 12 inch diameter circle. Transfer to an ungreased baking sheet or pizza stone.
Crumble the cheese into a medium sized bowl.Pour mushrooms over top of the cheese and mix gently. Spread this mixture onto the pastry crust leaving a 1 1/2 inch border. To finish, fold in the edges, creasing every two inches or so, leaving the center filling bare.
Bake the pastry for 30-40 minutes in a 400 degree oven, until pastry is lightly browned. We allowed the galette to cool slightly before eating. It was good warm, and then good again at room temperature when we went back for seconds.
[...] evidence indicates my consistent inability to discuss food in a context that makes people actually want to [...]