Recipe | Gooseberry, Thyme & Almond Galette

Photography by Kirstie Young

There’s something so free and easy about a galette. Effortless, generous and welcoming of almost any fruit. Once you’ve tried this version with gooseberries, try rhubarb, plums, apples, apricots, blackberries, cherries and so on. The quantities below are enough for two pastry bases, so freeze half the batch for your next fruit glut.

Serves 6

Ingredients

For the pastry:
325g plain flour
100g icing sugar
175g salted butter, cold and cubed
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp cold milk

For the Filling:
1 tbsp thyme leaves
3 tbsp caster sugar
300g gooseberries
1 egg, white and yolk separated
2 tbsp semolina
1 tbsp demerara sugar

To make

1 Start by making the pastry. Mix the flour, icing sugar and butter in a food processor until sandy. Add the egg yolk and milk and whizz until just combined. Shape into two discs and wrap. Freeze one for next time and chill the other for at least 30 mins.

2 Preheat the oven to 200C/Fan 180C/Gas 6 and place a baking sheet in the oven to get hot (which will prevent the notorious soggy bottom).

3 Next, for the filling. Put the thyme leaves and caster sugar in a pestle and mortar and give it a good bash. Mix this sugar with the gooseberries so that each one is coated.

4 Take the chilled pastry disc and roll it out into a round, about 3mm thick. I do this between two sheets of baking paper to avoid sticking.

5 Place the rolled pastry on a sheet of baking paper (if it isn’t already on one), and brush the middle of the pastry with the egg yolk leaving a 3-4cm border of un-egged pastry at the edge. Sprinkle the semolina over the eggy middle. Now pile the sugared gooseberries on top and fold the border of un-egged pastry up around the sides. Don’t fret if it creases, cracks, or looks messy – it’s all part of the charm.

6 Brush the folded pastry with the egg white and sprinkle with demerara sugar. Transfer to the preheated baking sheet and bake for 40 mins. Leave to rest for 15 mins before serving so the pastry can firm up, then drown in custard or cream… or both!

This galette is from our ‘Tales From The Veg Patch’ feature in our July issue, which is bursting with ideas for cooking and eating seasonal fruit. The recipes are by Kathy Slack.

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More things to do with summer fruits…

More from our blog…

Outing | PYO summer traditions

More than a chance to buy the freshest of veg, a day at a PYO farm is a treasure hunt in the sunshine. 

Some pick-your-own farms look like they could be in a snap from the 1970s – lines of fruit as far as the eye can see, punctuated only by a small wooden chalet. The simplicity of these places holds a strong sense of nostalgic charm, yet the new breed that can lay on a flat white and a fleet of miniature tractors to entertain accompanying tots as quickly as you can say: ‘One punnet, please’, has an altogether different kind of draw.

Pick Your Own has a number of precursors, such as in the Victorian farmers who invited their urban customers back to their land to harvest their own food, and ‘gleaning’ in the mid-20th century, when villagers were invited to collect and take home the corn that had fallen into the stubble after harvest.

More recently, the entrepreneurial Derbyshire farmer-turned-media personality Ted Moult is thought to have been the first to popularise pick-your-own strawberries by inviting visitors onto his fields in the early 1960s when reportedly, he greeted them one by one. As soft fruit became available in supermarkets all year round due to foreign imports, the pastime lost its allure, but with the 21st century’s renewed interest in seasonal food, it is regaining its rightful place as one of summer’s simple pleasures.

How to fill your punnet with only the sweetest, juiciest fruit

• Select strawberries in the warmest part of the day and, once you’ve established that they’re ripe (red all over), pinch the stalk between your thumb and forefinger and pull.
• Search for plump raspberries at the bases of the canes, which are often forgotten about. They should lift off easily when ready. Place in a shallow container in just one or two layers – they bruise easily.
• Remove the cluster of currants (black, red or white) on a branch before stripping it of its fruits.
• Gather under-ripe gooseberries in June for using in preserves, leaving enough fruits to sweeten for eating in July.

Turn to page 72 of June's The Simple Things for more PYO traditions.

More from the June issue:

Soft fruit recipe ideas:

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View the sampler here.