Hickory Smoked Mushroom Galette With Parmesan, Gruyere and Asiago Crust

It had to happen sooner or later. In this case, it was later. You see, I’ve had a hickory smoked mushroom galette in the back of my mind for a long time. A very long time. But with an armful of portabella and various wild mushrooms in hand, today is the day that back-of-my-brain desire gets out and on the grill, complete with a made from scratch dough that incorporates butter and cheese. Lordy!

Now I’ve made bread and king cakes on the grill, so I felt somewhat ok with tackling this type of challenge, and mushrooms are one of my favorite things to eat, so why not combine the two and shoot for the stars, so to speak. Thanks to www.howsweeteats.com, I found a recipe that incorporated cheese into the crust as well as the filling, so of course it was an immediate favorite, and the one I followed in this grilling adaptation. Now if you’ve been a reader of this blog, you know that I sometimes, ok, usually, have problems following any type of directions or recipes, preferring to just kinda wing it while using them as a guide of sorts. But I’m also smart enough to know that in the world of baking, precision is key, so I followed this one pretty closely with the only exchange being using a Gruyère/Parmesan/Asiago cheese mix rather than straight Gruyère. The one thing I’ll say up front is that this recipe made two galettes, each about 8 inches in diameter. So let’s get after it, and I’ll show you a couple of pictures along the way.

With nothing but good intentions, I added the salt to the all purpose flour and mixed it well. And then, with a giddiness and little giggle to myself, I dumped in a lot of cold, chopped butter cubes and a goodly amount of shredded cheese. Making more of a mess than turning on a simple stand mixer should do, I quickly learned a very valuable lesson about speeds and how they affect dry ingredients. Clean up was swift and specific, as to have it done before anyone else came home and discovered the phenomenon of a quick, yet measurable accumulation of snowfall indoors.

Now back to work.

Once sufficiently mixed, a mixture of a slightly beaten egg, vinegar and water is sprinkled on the dough mixture

Once again the mixer speed lever was worked like the manual shift of an old muscle car, until the mixture started forming into an actual dough. The dough ball was removed from the bowl, wrapped, and put in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Now the more familiar part. With the rest of the ingredients gathered near the grill, it was time to get that glorious mushroom filling prepared.

Mushrooms, Cheese, Butter and Olive Oil, Mascarpone, Garlic, and Herbs and Spices

The grill was heated up, with wisps of hickory smoke letting me know that it was ready to roll, and a large cast iron pan was called to action.

The olive oil, and, wouldn’t you know it, more butter, was put in the pan.

Once ready, the garlic can be added, and then all those mushrooms.

Give ’em a stir once in  a while, with bonus points if you don’t get any jumping out of the pan. You wouldn’t want to wast any of the beauties now, would you?

When the mushrooms are all softened, add in the rest of the spices and the mascarpone. I threw in a little quick grab of shredded cheese as well, it made me think I was doing something a little extra. Anyway, once that mushroom is mixed and softened well, pull it off the fire.

Grab the dough out of the fridge after 30 minutes, unwrap and cut it in half, because it’s time we get rollin’.

No rules here, because it’s a rustic sort of finish that we’re after, so just get a kinda, sorta roundish shape. Leave the ragged edges as they occur. As Martha would say, “That’s a good thing”.

I know you’re having such a good time rolling the dough out that you want to do it again, and fortunately, since this recipe makes two crusts, you can get to rolling the other one too. Position the dough on parchment. Whatever cheese you have left, sprinkle it over the bottom these crusts. Yep, we have cheese in the crust, and cheese on the crust. You’re welcome.

Spread the mushrooms out over the center of the crusts, leaving a couple of inches or so of the dough exposed on the edges.

Carefully fold the dough up towards the center, leaving some of the mushrooms exposed.

Make a quick egg wash and paint those two galettes, leaving no crust bare.

Here’s where it got tricky, because of the dimensions of a round grill, I didn’t think that I could just leave them on a large cookie sheet and locate them on the grill where I wanted them to be. To get a better indirect cook, I put them in separate pie tins so they could be positioned further away from the hot coals.

Keeping a steady temperature of 400 degrees, the lid can be closed, opening only to rotate the galettes so as to get a more even browning on the crust.

When these beauties were ready to pull off, I caught the combined aroma of the mushrooms and flaky dough, leading me to get my hopes up that these were turning out like I hoped.

With a few dried herbs tossed over the top,  I cut into the mushroom galette, and all those juicy, tasty mushrooms held in that flaky, crispy crust. All I could do was start cutting and eating.

This was a keeper of a recipe, and I can’t wait to do it all over again, with different fillings and combinations of ingredients. But meanwhile, back to the table,

Because Life Is Better Wood Fired