Rustic Sweet Potato Chestnuts Galette

Tracey, over at Tracey’s Culinary Adventures, gave me the inspiration for this dish . When I saw it, I thought that tart looked so amazingly good but I really didn’t like the idea of using so much butter in the crust. I think that, unfortunately, good old pie crust is a thing of the past for me… It requires way too much fat to be a part of my regular diet. But I refuse to cross pies entirely off my list! I like them way too much for that. I simply have to look for ways to make them a whole lot healthier.

Back to Tracey’s tart, I thought that the “bready” crust I had used for my rustic spinach feta galette would work great! Then I thought maybe if I was going to use that crust, that I could do the exact same technique as the one I had used for said galette but change the stuffing to match that of the tart! Aaaah, now there’s a great idea!

From there, I totally forgot about the recipe and let my imagination run wild. I had to use sweet potatoes, as to me, that was the base ingredient. I also wanted chestnuts in there. And spinach was also a must. For some reason, I really wanted to try the spinach, chestnuts and sweet potato combination. I wasn’t convinced it was going to work well with the feta cheese but still, I had to try it. If it didn’t work out, then I could always make a few adjustments next time…

Well, I think I made a pretty good call in the end. No adjustments necessary here. I think all the flavours and textures complemented each other just fine. This is another keeper, for sure. Oh, and I have some leftover in the fridge, so now I look forward to trying it cold. I’m hoping it’ll be just as good as the spinach / feta version was!

I just love easy, versatile dishes such as this one!

Ingredients
(serves 4-6)

Crust

• 1 cup spelt flour
• ¾ cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• ¾ cup buttermilk
• 1 egg

Filling

• 2 large onions, sliced
• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed
• 450g spinach
• 300g roasted and peeled chestnuts (pre-packaged)
• 125g feta cheese, crumbled
• 1 cup 1% cottage cheese
• 1 egg
• Freshly grated nutmeg
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Poppy seeds

Instructions

• Whisk flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk oil, milk and egg; pour over flour. Stir to form fairly smooth dough. On floured surface, knead until smooth, 2 minutes. Press into disc; wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 375F
• In skillet, heat oil over medium heat; fry onions, stirring often, until caramelized, about 20 minutes. Every 2-3 minutes, add water, a few tablespoons at a time and let it evaporate completely before adding more. When onions are nice and caramelized, transfer to large bowl.
• Add sweet potato and fry for 5-10 minutes, to give it a nice brown coloration. Add ¼ cup water and cook for another 5 minutes, until all water has evaporated. Transfer to bowl with onions.
• Add spinach, in batches, and cook until wilted. Drain and squeeze out moisture. Mix into onions and potatoes, along with chestnuts, feta, cottage, egg, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
• On floured surface, roll out dough to form a 16 inch disc. Fit into greased (brush with olive oil) 9 inch cast iron skillet, letting excess hang over edge.
• Mound filling in center; lift pastry up over filling, letting it fall naturally into folds and leaving 5 inch opening in the center. Brush dough with egg white, sprinkle with poppy seeds.
• Bake in bottom third of oven until pastry is golden and filling is steaming, about 45 minutes. Let stand for 10 – 15 minutes before cutting into wedges.