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Hello everyone, I'm Claire Saffitz. Welcome to my home kitchen. Today I will show you a savory zucchini biscuit. We'll use a pound and a half of zucchini, put them in a larger amount, this is the perfect summer savory pastry. I have to give Harris credit because I haven't been gardening this year. I just chose the seedlings, and then he did everything else. Come in. I love growing cabbage. It's so nice, they're so pretty, and I love eating them. Look at the melons. Cantaloupe. Is n't that amazing? Just a few days ago, she was tiny. Look at this watermelon. Isn't that cool? So, here are our zucchini. This handsome guy will be ready tomorrow. It's just crazy how they grow. That huge bush is a cranberry. There are literally three
cranberries on it, for the entire bush. I found two more somewhere out there, but now I don't know where they are. So, they have from one to three berries on them. Pears grow here. Of course, everything is fenced in because of the deer. This is a "cocozel" zucchini. It's like an Italian variety. They grow huge. Therefore, we collect them in medium size. They are simply better. They have fewer seeds. Today we will prepare zucchini for pie in two ways. First I'll grate them, and then I'll also fry them.
Zucchini is at its best when quickly sautéed over high heat until browned and caramelized, it's incredibly delicious. So, here are my ingredients for the dough. I take half a cup of high-grade flour, a cup of whole-wheat flour, salt, and sugar. I have ice water and butter cut into cubes. For the filling and pie assembly, I have a pound and a half of zucchini, an onion, a little more butter, Gruyere, Parmesan, an egg, fresh thyme, a pinch of nutmeg, some flour for rolling, salt and pepper. You will need a kitchen grater. I've already used it to grate Gruyere cheese. We'll grate half of the zucchini on it, and we'll also need a rolling pin and the medium frying pan that's behind it. When I tested this recipe, I made it free-form on a
baking sheet, but I thought: why don't I just bake it in a pan? This gives me shape and one less dish. That's all. My dough will be prepared using the same method as any other pie dough. I have whole wheat flour, some high- grade flour. The difference is that whole grain flour absorbs more liquid for any baking. This is firstly, and secondly, it develops gluten less. For a crust like this, it doesn't matter much. I add a couple of teaspoons of sugar and a teaspoon of kosher salt. Now I add the butter. It must be very cold. I'll just knead it a little. I make a savoury biscuit, but this dough is versatile. You can use the same base for a sweet or summer fruit galette.
I knead the pieces of butter with my fingertips, flattening them a little. If it is very hot in the kitchen, it is better to cool the flour in the freezer beforehand. The entire mixture must be very cold so that the butter remains solid. This will help create the desired flaky texture that appears when the butter melts and turns to steam in the oven. So, I kneaded all the butter. I have measuring spoons with an unusual volume. This one is for 2 tablespoons. So I need 6 tablespoons of water. One, two. Fourth.
Sixth. I just mix it all with a fork. I use a fork instead of my hands because the warmth of my fingers makes the flour stick to my skin right away, which is annoying. When everything hasn't even mixed a bit, but has simply absorbed moisture, not necessarily evenly. Pour everything onto the work surface. You can use any object with a straight edge. I often did this in the program with different types of dough. This is my universal basic method for making dough. I chop everything up and use the edge of the object to gather everything into one pile in the center. This helps distribute the moisture and break the pieces of butter into smaller pieces. I need a mixture of butter pieces: slightly larger and smaller. Small ones will make the crust
tender, while larger ones will create crispy layers. So, once you've chopped everything down to the point where the largest pieces of butter are the size of a pea, you can stop working. As you can see, it's already starting to stick together. I see significantly fewer dry areas. You saw that it started to stick a little to the scraper. To me, this means that the moisture is distributed very evenly. Now I'll gather everything into a pile and start forming a square. I like to use a scraper to seal the edges so it sticks better. Now I'll sprinkle the work surface with flour so the dough doesn't stick. I transfer the dough to a floured surface and roll it out with a rolling pin. You can wrap it in cling film and that's it. This will be
enough. It will make a wonderful crust. But I like to do these steps to make the dough fluffier. It's a kind of rapid lamination, mimicking the process that makes pastries like croissants flaky. Essentially, we are simply increasing the number of layers of oil. I rolled it out into a half-inch thick circle and now I'm going to cut it into four pieces with a scraper. You don't have to use a skillet for this recipe. You can use any dough that you know, love, and trust. So now I have four parts. I'll transfer this piece back to the floured surface. Now let's put these four parts together. If there are any crumbs, just put them between the layers, they will press down.
Monitor the temperature of the dough while working. It's still well cooled, so I can keep working. Good. Now I'll sprinkle some flour on top and flatten it. I formed it into a square to make it easier to fold, and now I'm going to shape it into a circle again. This is my whole wheat dough. I'll wrap it in cling film, and I also have what I made last night-I'll get it out for our galette, but first let's get to the filling, because the mixture needs to be prepared. After wrapping and placing in the cold, the dough should chill for at least an hour, preferably two. You can put this in the refrigerator for two days or freeze it. As a base for flavor, I caramelize some onions. So, I have a frying pan behind me. I'll heat it over
medium heat and chop the onion. I have 3 tablespoons of butter. I will use two for this step. I'll put one aside. I put oil in the pan. And when it melts, I'll add the onion. I'll turn up the heat a little. The onion will be stewed, I want it to brown. While it's cooking, grate the zucchini. I just use the large holes on the grater. We need to fry it first because zucchini has a lot of water. If you add it raw, you will never get rid of all the moisture during baking. Okay, I'll take a little less than half of the second zucchini. And I'll cut the rest into slices. I'll put this aside. So, I continue to fry the onions until they are caramelized. I'll add the thyme and zucchini, season with salt and pepper, and
then fry the zucchini until they're browned and starting to stick a little. The main task is to evaporate all the water. It will cook until it reduces in volume and begins to brown. Meanwhile, I'll chop the rest of the zucchini. This can be done using a mandolin. You need to cut them into thin slices. It doesn't matter if they are perfectly even, because everything will still bake. The idea is that we will fry them as well and they will be the top of my galette. So I'll move this to the stove. Let's look at our filling. Okay, I think it needs another two or three minutes for the filling to cook.
I'll transfer it to a bowl. I'll come back here, mix it with the other filling ingredients, and then brown the slices. So, here are my roasted zucchini. Most of them are nicely browned, which is good. This is very delicious. Your zucchini should look something like this, with this much color. So, let's finish our grated filling. I picked the thyme stems because they were n't needed there. So I add Gruyere. That's 4 ounces of grated Gruyere. You can use aged cheddar. This will be very tasty. I add Parmesan. always add a little nutmeg to anything with Gruyere. It's just a great classic combination.
I'll add a little pepper. Another reason to get rid of the water in the zucchini is that you don't want to put a very liquid filling on the dough. It just won't brown properly on the bottom. It will get wet. In my second book, "What's for Dessert," I wrote about the concept of " fruit management." Of course, this is in the context of desserts, but it applies to any baked goods. Managing fruit during baking is all about moisture content. You have to constantly adjust the moisture content, as water is the enemy of many types of dough. Therefore, in many cases, I prepare the filling in advance, because it all depends on the water. In
baking, it's important to have the right amount of moisture before the oven. Mm. Delicious. Maybe a little more salt. A little more pepper. I have one egg. I'll shake it up, save half for brushing the outside of the biscuit, and add the rest to the filling. This will give the filling a better texture. Here are my zucchini slices for the top. The oven is preheated to 400 degrees. We will bake the biscuit at a high temperature. And I'll bake it right in the pan. I put the filling in the fridge because I don't want to assemble everything at once. It's like a form. But I'll get the dough I made last night. Here is my frying pan. She has
cooled down. It doesn't have to be done in a frying pan. You can simply make any shape on a baking sheet lined with parchment. But I want to use it because I have leftover juices from roasting zucchini. It's like a mixture of squash juice and butter. This will make the bottom even more golden. I let it cool, and then I poured cold water on the other side. So, I didn't have to get rid of the delicious fat from the pan, but now it's cold. Galettes are a rather rustic, very free form of baking. I roll this dough into a shape that looks like a circle. It does n't have to be perfect at all. And since I'm cooking it in a pan that already gives me a nice shape, it doesn't really have to be any specific size. And again, my oven is already preheated to 200
degrees. This will bake for about 40 minutes. Everything is already completely ready. We really just need the egg and filling to set and the crust to brown. I'll transfer this to my frying pan. Okay. I'll take my stuffing. This goes here. And now I'm going to put the zucchini slices on top. And I won't worry too much about how to place them. I don't care about rosettes or even rows, but I'll save a few nicer toasted pieces for the very top. This definitely needs salt on top. And I think when I get it, I'll garnish it with fresh thyme leaves. So the last step is to simply wrap the edges of my dough. This is very easy to do while it's in the pan. And with a biscuit, you just let the folds fall the way they want. Don't
worry too much about it. I'll use the leftover egg to brush the edges of the crust. This is only needed to add shine and brown the crust a little. And now-into the oven. It will bake in the middle of the oven until the dough is really golden, I would say 40-50 minutes. The biscuit was in the oven for 37 minutes. It was already starting to smell deliciously ready. I checked it and it's ready to be taken out. A little less than 40 minutes, but it looks very, very beautiful. She is incredibly hot. So we'll just let it cool, then slice it and enjoy. I looked at my phone, it's 24 degrees outside, and we're in the shade. It's literally cooler here than at
home. And in New York in the summer, as in other places, when it's not hot, you want to finish the job outside. I plucked a few sprigs of thyme from our herb bed on the terrace. So I'll just finish making the tart. It looks very good. It's a little warm underneath. But we, we are ready to eat. I'll cut a piece. I love how everything caramelized. So, I have a small serrated knife to cut through all the layers. Oh my God. She seems fat, but in a good way. There's plenty of good oil and butter there. The bottom is so well baked and crispy. You can actually eat it like pizza. Mhm. It's tastier than you'd expect, considering it's mostly zucchini. All that cheese is really doing its thing. It ties everything together, makes
the dish creamy. It is extremely savory thanks to thyme and caramelized onions. But overall, it's zucchini. It meets many requirements because the dough can be prepared in advance. All the filling ingredients can be prepared in advance. This is a great vegetarian main dish that allows you to use up lots of summer produce. Thanks for watching, and don't forget to like and subscribe.
