Passport & Plate - Wild Blueberry galette
Canada | Friday, March 6, 2015 | 4 photos
Ingredients
Dough:
6 3/4 ounces unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp granulated sugar
1/2 tsp table salt
5 1/2 ounces butter
1 large egg yolk
3 Tbsp milk
Filling:
4 cups wild blueberries, preferable fresh picked from the Canadian wild
1/4 C sugar, depending on how sweet you like your pie and how sweet your berries are
1 Tbsp flour
big pinch of salt
zest of one lemon
Finishing:
I egg beaten
turbinada or demerara sugar
To serve:
vanilla ice cream or whipped cream (optional)
How to prepare this recipeDough:
Place flour, sugar in salt in stand mixer
Cut butter into little squares and add to flour mixture
Mix for a minute or two, until butter pieces are the size of small peas and dough holds together when you squish some between your fingers
Place on lightly floured surface and use the heal of your hand to push it out, then fold it back on itself. Repeat this a few times until dough comes together.
Wrap in plastic wrap and place in fridge.
Filling:
Combine berries (inhale their heavenly scent at this stage), sugar, flour and lemon zest
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Place rack in middle of oven
Assemble:
Take dough from fridge and roll it out into something resembling a 13-14 inch circle. Don't sweat the shape and feel free to take some dough from one side and attach to the other to help with the shaping.
Place it on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet
Dump berry mixture in the middle of "circle" and gather up the edges, making pleats or some facsimile thereof.
Beat an egg, then spread it on dough with pastry brush. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.
Bake for about 55 minutes or until crust is golden and delicious juices are seeping out.
Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream or nothing and toast the settlers who could have gone further south to warmer climes but chose to stay with the black flies and brutal winters!
The story behind this recipeEvery summer for the past quarter century, I’ve stayed at my in-laws 1930s log cabin in an area known as the Ottawa Valley, a place steeped in Canadian pioneer folklore and logging tales.
At the height of our too brief summers, the area is blanketed in fragrant wild blueberries that, unlike anyone in my family, I'm driven to gather and turn into pie.
My picking partner is Hector Vaillancourt, a 90-year-old local, one of 15 children with no formal education who handles a chain saw as easily as a butter knife.
We head out early – when the dew has dried, but before it's too hot and the flies come out – and Hec leads me to his latest secret picking ground. He brings along his wooden 2-quart basket, wears a plaid shirt, work pants, sturdy boots and a worn leather cowboy hat he's probably had since his logging days.
Instinctively, he knows where the fattest, bluest berries hide and heads into the vast, deserted field of low bush. With hands gnarled and chapped from decades of living and working off the land, Hec delicately picks the plump, juicy berries, leaving unwanted twigs, insects and leaves behind.
As he picks, he tells tales of how, while working in the bush, he’d place his filthy, flea-infested clothing under the horse’s saddle at night so the insects would feast on the larvae nestled there, rather than on Hec.
We pick until it’s time for Hec to get home to “the wife” for his mid-day meal. It pains us to leave those unpicked jewels of nature behind as if abandoning little children needing our love.
Back at the cabin, my mother-in-law, who comes from a long line of expert, intimidating pie makers, is already rolling out crust as easy as, well, pie. Her secret, she says, is lard over shortening.
I love baking, but pastry used to reduce me to tears until I discovered a rustic galette recipe that allowed for a more free form creation with no need for perfectly crimped edges.
It’s made with butter.
And beautiful berries picked with love and infused with history.
