New Year's Eve 2024: Mushroom Galette

As is our tradition, we spend New Year's Eve at home or with friends rather than going out to celebrate. We no longer have the desire to stay up late or to be on the roads with a bunch of drunk drivers. And having to be at the restaurant until the crack of dawn each New Year's, I suppose that I am still avoiding New Year's Eve like the plague some 7 or 8 years after I closed the restaurant.

Once upon a time in McMinnville, I made some crostini of wild mushrooms and Taleggio cheese that Ann cannot get out of her mind. It seems that whenever we want to celebrate, she remembers the flavors of that simple appetizer. From that memory, somehow we got to a mushroom and leek galette topped with two flavorful cheeses, one rather more pungent and one with a bit of blue veining.

Mushroom and Leek Galette

I cheated. I used commercial puff pastry that I rolled out into a big rectangle and topped with mushroom and leek ragoût. Then I rolled the edges over like a country tart and topped the mushroom mixture with thinly sliced cheese, followed by a good grating of pecorino romano. After a simple egg wash on the edges of the galette, it went into a very hot oven and baked until brown.

Leek and Mushroom Ragoût

The ragoût is terribly simple. I sweated two leeks in butter, then added three fresh mushrooms: wild chanterelles and domestic oysters and shiitakes. Once these started shrinking down and cooking, I added chopped rehydrated porcini and the highly flavored water in which I soaked them overnight. After about 15 minutes on the heat, the whole became a thick ragoût suitable for topping a pastry crust.

Grand Cru Guiborat Blanc de Blancs Champagne

We were able to get our hands on a bottle of Guiborat Champagne, a blanc de blancs. Although we enjoy all styles of Champagne, we really love crisp and high acid 100% Chardonnay bottlings such as this, especially with rich and fatty food.

And another year is in the books. Our neighbors were only too happy to remind us of this as they continued with the big fireworks mortars until after 3am. So much for getting to be early and getting some good sleep.