This dish is for goat’s cheese lovers and would be a very special first course for a fancy dinner, or then again, maybe a light lunch or brunch dish. If you don’t want to serve grilled goat’s cheese on top of the galettes, why not add a spoonful of cherry tomatoes quickly sautéed with basil leaves instead? The anchovy dressing is optional, but excellent.
Ingredients
400g g floury potatoes, peeled
1 free-range egg, plus
1 free-range egg yolk
¼ cup (60 ml) pouring cream
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons plain flour
100 g butter, clarified (see page 460)
8 × 1 cm-thick slices of a round
goat’s cheese log
rocket or small salad leaves, washed
and dried (optional), to serve
Anchovy dressing
2 anchovy fillets, chopped
1 clove garlic, very finely chopped
40 g unsalted butter
juice of ½ lemon
2 teaspoons chopped
flat-leaf parsley
Method
Preheat oven to 100°C and put a paper towel-lined ovenproof plate inside to keep warm. Cook 1 of the potatoes in a saucepan of lightly salted simmering water for 20 minutes or until quite tender. Press through a potato ricer into a mixing bowl. Add whole egg, egg yolk and cream and mix, then season with salt and pepper.
Grate remaining potato in a food processor with a coarse grating attachment, or use a box grater. Tip potato into a clean, dry tea towel. Roll up and twist tea towel ends in opposite directions to extract as much liquid as possible. Tip squeezed potato into a dry bowl and immediately add potato/egg mixture and enough flour to bind the mixture so it will hold its shape when fried.
Heat clarified butter in a heavy-based non-stick frying pan over medium heat and drop spoonfuls of the potato mixture into the pan; you should have enough for 8 galettes. Fry undersides until golden, then turn and fry other sides. Transfer galettes to paper towel-lined plate and keep warm in the oven until you are ready to serve.
Heat griller to maximum. Top each galette with a slice of goat’s cheese and grill until cheese starts to bubble and develop a golden crust. Quickly remove cheese-topped galettes to serving plates. (I like to settle the galettes on a bed of rocket or a mixture of garden-picked small salad leaves.)
To make the anchovy dressing, heat anchovy and garlic in a small frying pan over high heat for 30 seconds, swirl in butter and, as it foams, add lemon juice and parsley. Spoon a little over cheese-covered gallette, then serve.
This recipe is from Kitchen Garden Companion: Cooking, an updated paperback edition featuring 250 recipes to create from the produce you’ve grown and gathered yourself.
