Last Night's Dinner 29

A sweet potato, harissa, goat's cheese galette, sped up inordinately by your pressure cooker

Messy! And including a stray blob of pastry, courtesy of Adam, unnoticed by me until just now

We are having a volatile time of it at the moment. My son, Adam, is constantly rehearsing for a school production at the moment and last Friday he was singing at the school’s summer showcase/party - a very casual, laidback affair - but his nerves were getting the better of him because he was struggling with a very dodgy backing track which kept throwing him off. It meant at home in the run up he was stressed to the point of UNBEARABLE.

Then he performed on Friday and as soon as it was over, the switch flipped and he was back to his normal, sunny, relatively thoughtful self. And actually, the whole evening was lovely. All the performers were so supportive of one another and were clearly having such a good time together. And there is some serious talent at the school. But I am steeling myself for what he is going to be like in 2 weeks time when he has the musical performances to get through….if anyone has any tips on dealing with performance nerves please holler. I never dealt with them well myself!

Anyway, this weekend was a bit of a lull. Relatively calm, business as usual. And, randomly, my electricity provider was doing their free electricity thing yesterday (100% renewables too) which is when I get the induction hobs out, switch the oven on and do a mass batch cook. Adam got a whiff of the fact that the oven might be on, so asked if we could bake. After a quick recce of what needed using up, we made banana bread, and blueberry muffins, and chorizo cornmeal muffins and a quiche and this galette. And as I have 2 ovens I was able, in the time, to roast some potatoes and crisp up some baked potatoes too.

A quick refresher on the potatoes - I know we are in a bit of a heatwave and I bet I am the only person in this hemisphere talking about how to cook roast potatoes this week, but I am of course aware that some of you are going into winter, not summer, and that people still want roast potatoes all year round -

To par cook potatoes for roasting it is best to steam them above the water line so they cook more evenly - anything on the base will be soggy on one side even in this short cooking time. So put just 1cm of water in the base, elevate the potatoes over the top in a steamer basket, then bring up to high pressure. Cook for 1 minute only and fast release. Then remove from the cooker, drain and return. Give a good shake to rough up before roasting. These did not have as long as 1 minute - more like 30 seconds - and could have done with the extra time, but still made very good roast potatoes and Adam ate pretty much the whole batch in a sitting.

And for baked potatoes - check out this post, which has the method as well my favourite baked potato soup (yes, it’s a thing, and please try it if you haven’t already. Trust me!)

After pressure cooking I did let them crisp up a bit more in the oven. We haven’t eaten any of them yet. They will be probably stuffed and rebaked sometime this week. And some will probably be used for bubble and squeak or hash as well which my lot can eat whatever the weather.

Now for the galette:

Sweet Potato, Harissa and Goat’s Cheese Galette

I gave Options before I made this based on what I had in the fridge and this is what we settled on. It is very simple to make - even simpler if you don’t make your own pastry, and doesn’t need massively long in the oven.

Remember that a bonus of doing anything in the pressure cooker during the hotter months is that you are keeping your kitchen cooler. I know I keep banging on about this but will probably continue to do so until October….

For the pastry:

300g plain flour (I used a mixture of white and rye, as had some rye to use up)

175g butter

1 egg, beaten

For the filling:

2 tbsp olive oil, plus more for brushing

1 red onion, sliced into slim wedges

1 red pepper, cut into strips

1 large sweet potato, peeled, quartered lengthways and sliced

1 tbsp harissa paste

A few slices of goat’s cheese (I used a rinded one as holds together better)

A sprinkling of dried thyme or oregano