Heirloom Tomato Galette with Basil and Mozzarella
Ripe, in season heirloom tomatoes are a little slice of heaven on earth. Well, heaven roasted in a puff pastry with gooey mozzarella and bright herby basil. For this recipe, you’ll want to try to find a rainbow of tomatoes to try.
This galette is so good - it’s worth turning your oven on in the heat of summer…but you don’t have to, because I’ve adapted this recipe for the grill (you just need a pizza stone that will fit on your grill)!
4-6 heirloom tomatoes (look for different sizes/shapes/colors) For this galette pictured above/below, I used: 1 orange Brandywine, 1 costuloto Genovese (but any of the costolutos works with their unique shape), 1 black krim, 3 evil olive large cherry, 5 white currant cherry (they’re really yellow when ripe), and 2 chocolate cherry.
8 oz of fresh mozzarella. A tip from our friend Ginevra, a private chef in Italy: instead of slicing, try pulling pieces off the log. The end result will be gooey-er and less watery.
1 puff pastry sheet (if frozen, defrost ahead of time)
2 cloves of garlic, slivered
freshly ground salt/pepper
Good olive oil
sliced basil for finishing
cornmeal/flour for dusting
1 egg for basting the crust
Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. If you’re using a grill, turn all burners on medium low heat and put your pizza stone on the grill to heat up.
Thinly slice your heirloom tomatoes, lightly salt, and place on a paper towel to absorb some of the water. Pat dry.
On a lightly floured surface, gently stretch your galette dough into a roughly round or rectangular shape. If you’re using the oven, place your galette onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat mat. If you plan to grill your galette, put it on pizza peel or baking sheet without an edge dusted with cornmeal.
Pat tomatoes dry again with the paper towel, then arrange the tomatoes onto the galette dough. Try overlapping different colors or putting the tomatoes down in a gradient color effect.
Gently pull up the edges of the galette to create a nice crust, while leaving the center open to show the beautiful tomatoes.
Top with slivered garlic, globs of mozzarella, and freshly cracked black pepper and salt.
Lightly drizzle with good olive oil.
Beat the egg and brush on the crust.
For baking in an oven:
Place the galette into the oven for 12-15 minutes. When the crust is golden brown and the cheese has melted, your galette is ready.
Remove from oven and sprinkle with fresh basil.
Let it cool for a few minutes to let the cheese set, then slice and enjoy!
For baking on the grill:
Slide your galette off the pizza peel or baking sheet onto the hot pizza stone and let it bake for 8-10 minutes. Check every 3-ish minutes to ensure the crust isn’t getting too brown.
Remove from grill using pizza peel or baking sheet and sprinkle with fresh basil.
Let it cool for a few minutes to let the cheese set, then slice and enjoy!
The galette right before going into the oven.
Another heirloom galette - the crispy and flaky crust is SO good with the sweet acidity of the tomatoes.
For this rainbow galette, I had more tomatoes than dough! It required some massaging to get the tomatoes moved in enough to to turn the corners up. This galette has: yellow currant cherry tomatoes, sun gold cherry tomatoes, costoluto Genovese tomatoes, black krim tomatoes, and Norfolk Purple cherry tomatoes.
For this galette, I layered freshly made basil pesto with slices of mozzarella cheese and placed the tomatoes on top. IMO the cheese on top is much better (although the pesto addition was delicious!)
