Quince and more galette & a holiday party! (Celebration #4)

Today we had our 4th celebration: a holiday party at Amey of Vegan Eats & Treats's house! Attended by said Amey & a bunch of the South Bay area PPKers.

Okay, if you want to be technical about it, it was a Thanksgiving party. But a celebration is a celebration, so I'm counting it, guys.

Here's a picture of my plate:



There was SO much good stuff at this party, including TWO kinds of brussels sprouts. (One with hazelnuts, one without.) I said at the party, "two types of brussels sprouts! that's how you know it's a good party!" and I meant it. Man, do I love bsprouts.

Other things: amazing flaky rolls, mac'n'cheez, seitan stuffed with squash and I'm not sure what else, gravy, mushrooms with a rice stuffing (the stuffing was great but mushrooms freak me out so I only ate half of my mushroom), cranberries!!, apple pie, and chocolate bourbon nut balls. All vegan. All delicious.

I made this galette that was loosely based on Deborah Madison's Apple-Quince Mince recipe. I had to change a million things because a) she wanted me to use my food processor which is just not going to happen on a Sunday morning and b) I didn't have two thirds of the stuff it called for. But I'm really happy with the results so I'm recording my version of it anyway.



Quince & More Galette
makes one 9x9 square galette

Filling:
1 large lemon
5 clementines (or 1 navel orange)
3c mixed raisins
1c crystallized ginger, chopped
2 apples, peeled and diced
1 quince, peeled and grated
1/2c dried mango, chopped
1c brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp allspice
1 tsp grated nutmeg (or to taste, you know about me and nutmeg)
1c water
1/3c rum

Galette dough:
1 1/2c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsps sugar
10 tbsps non-hydrogenated vegan shortening (such as Spectrum), room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2c ice water
additional cinnamon & sugar for sprinkling

Filling:
1. Zest the lemon & clementines and set zest aside. Remove pith and seeds from citrus and then chop the remaining citrus, being as gentle as possible so as not to squeeze all the juice out.
2. Put all the ingredients except the rum (zests, chopped citrus, raisins, ginger, apple, quince, mango, sugar, spices, water) into a large saucepan and stir til well combined.
3. Set on medium high heat and bring to a boil. This probably won't take long because there's not that much water in this.
4. When it reaches a boil, give it a stir, cover it, and reduce heat to low. You want it to continue a strong simmer. Cook for 20 minutes, stirring very occasionally.
5. Add the rum and continue to cook, uncovered, for another 10 minutes.
6. Remove from heat and allow to cool while you make the galette.

Galette:
7. Line a 9x9 baking pan with parchment paper.
8. Stir flour, salt, and sugar together until combined.
9. Add shortening by the tablespoonful. Use a pastry cutter to cut the shortening into the flour, aiming for that ever popular pea sized granule of shortening.
10. Sprinkle the vanilla extract over the rest of the bowl. Don't mix in at this point.
11. Add the ice water in, distributing across the rest of the dough. After every couple of tablespoons, stir with a spatula. Stop adding water as soon as the dough comes together. You might not need the whole 1/2c.
12. Form into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap, then refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Assembly:
13. Preheat oven to 450 F.
14. Roll the dough out into a big rectangle between two sheets of wax paper. It should be at least 10x10 but roll it out basically as big as you can without tearing it. Mine ended up more like 12 x 12 this time.
15. Gently transfer the dough sheet into the baking pan and gently scoot it down into the shape of the pan with your fingertips. There should be dough hanging over the edges of the pan on all sides.
16. Scoop filling into the dough. I needed a little over half of the quince etc mixture to fill mine up-- 4c measured out. (Save the rest of the filling for putting on oatmeal or something.)
17. Fold the sides of the dough up and towards the center. You should end up with a square hole in the middle.
18. Sprinkle top of galette with a bit of sugar & cinnamon.
19. Bake at 450F for 15 minutes.
20. Reduce heat to 375F and bake for another 45 minutes until lightly browned, checking every 15 minutes or so.

That's it! Okay, it's a lot of steps, but it was actually not very hard... and tasty enough to be worth doing again.

On that note, here is the Emperor hanging out with Amey's cat Yummers Potatoes: