Rhubarb Galette Chez Panisse
Bringing together tart and sweet rhubarb with buttery pastry, Rick Stein's Rhubarb Galette as seen on his BBC series, The Road to Mexico is an easy but impressive dessert.
From the book
Rick Stein: The Road to Mexico
Classic dishes you'll fall in love with
All the recipes from Rick's TV series
Learn to make authentic Mexican food
Introduction
Going to Chez Panisse was inevitably a high point of California for me. Alice Waters at Chez Panisse has for years been my ideal – she runs a small local restaurant serving what’s fresh from the market and with a menu that changes every day – and meeting her only reinforced that. I’ve chosen the rhubarb galette from the many dishes I tasted. The restaurant’s pastry section is the sort of place you’d love your teenager to work, surrounded by Californian citrus fruit, baskets of rose petals and the new season’s rhubarb. Would that every youngster aspiring to become a chef could join such a kitchen. I did ask Alice if my stepdaughter Olivia could do a stage there. And she said yes.
Ingredients
| 225g | plain flour |
| a pinch | of salt |
| 170g | cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1cm cubes |
| 80ml | ice-cold water |
| For the filling: | |
| 500g | rhubarb, cut into 6cm long batons (save any trimmings_ |
| finely grated zest of an orange | |
| 200g | granulated sugar |
| a pinch of | salt |
| juice of ½ an orange | |
| 1 tbsp | muscat dessert wine |
| 30g | unsalted butter, melted |
| 30g | caster sugar |
| 2 tbsp | sugar, for the glaze |
| To serve: | |
| vanilla ice cream or whipped cream |
Essential kit
You will need: a food processor,
Method
In a food processor, pulse the flour and salt. Add the butter and process briefly. Sprinkle over the ice-cold water and pulse for about 5 seconds, until just moistened.
Transfer the dough to a floured work surface and knead it 2 or 3 times until it comes together. Pat the dough into a disc. Lay a sheet of baking parchment on your work surface and dust it with flour. Roll out the dough like a pizza to make a 35cm circle, 4–5mm thick. Transfer the parchment to a baking sheet and chill the pastry.
Preheat the oven to 220°C/Fan 200°C. Toss the rhubarb in a bowl with the orange zest, sugar, salt, juice and wine and mix well. Arrange the rhubarb on top of the pastry and sprinkle over any remaining sugary mixture. Leave a border of 5–6cm around the edge of the pastry, fold that in and crimp to form a border. Brush the fruit with melted butter and sprinkle with caster sugar, then repeat this process three times.
Bake the galette for 10–12 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 200°C/Fan 180°C and bake for a further 30–35 minutes. To make the glaze, cook the rhubarb trimmings with 75ml of water until soft. Strain the liquid from the pulp and add the 2 tablespoons of sugar. Pour this back into the pan and let the sugar dissolve, then reduce to a thick syrup.
Leave the galette to cool, then brush it with the glaze. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
