I looked in my refrigerator and found a Kabocha squash and a head of fennel and got inspired. This is a classic French style galette, meaning an open-form tart. It is easy to make with store bought puff pastry. The texture and flavor combinations are sublime particularly topped off with the creamy Taleggio. It serves 4.
Ingredients:
1 small squash or pumpkin
5 tbsp. olive oil (you can use flavored oils as well like rosemary olive oil)
1 tsp mace, ground
2 small fennel bulbs
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp fennel pollen or fennel seeds, crushed
1 lb baby spinach
1 tbsp. unsalted butter
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 egg yolk mixed with 2 tsp milk (for an egg wash)
1/2 lb Taleggio cheese, sliced
1 box puff pastry
Whenever I look in my refrigerator and find a plethora of vegetables, I know it is time to make a vegetable pot pie. Use your favorite savory pie crust recipe. I use my recipe I learned in Paris. It is one I teach in my cooking classes because it is hard to describe the process to make it on paper. Making pastry is truly getting the feel for it. This recipe for Pot Pie is a little unusual because I add saffron to the sauce. It adds a little gourmet touch over the basic white sauce found in most pot pies. The other night, I experimented with throwing in some of the cooked vegetables from a Moroccan stew and they add a whole new dimension of flavor. Also, I did not have any fresh mushrooms so I soaked some dried shiitake and sliced them. I added some of the soaking mushroom broth to the sauce instead in addition to vegetable stock and omitted the cream. So the moral of the story is to experiment when making a pot pie. Any filling goes so look in your pantry and refrigerator and see what you can come up with. Please report back if you have a great success story.
Katherine
vegoutgourmet.com 