Another blog! I promised Chris and Christine that I would describe an experiment that we conducted in Philly before I left to return to Chapel Hill, so since I am tired of studying right now, and not ready to push forward on the grading I need to do before the end of the week, here goes!

My brother-in-law and sister have apparently been taking the galette making operation very seriously recently. These are no ordinary galettes they are making; they are the genuine Galette de Sarrasin, made with buckwheat flour. In Bretagne in France, these are traditional and a really delicious treat to have with all sorts of fillings, whether those are ham, cheese and egg (complete) for the non-adventurous, or andouille or scallops for the more adventurous. In any case, they are not easy to make if you do not know the right proportions of flour, water, salt, and other ingredients.

It turns out that there are dozens of different recipes which claim to produce the Galette de Sarrasin. But Chris and Christine have had little luck in making these, despite numerous attempts. They claim to usually throw out about half the batter because the galettes are sometimes too brittle, other times too thick. We set out to correct this problem with a more scientific methodology.

First, we chose five recipes that had different ingredients so that we could monitor the influence of each. We picked one very basic one - buckwheat flour, water and salt only. Another added an egg to the mix. Recipes three four and five all contained different variations of a buckwheat - all purpose flour mixture, some with more or less egg, one with oil, others with butter and milk. Christine and I made these batters, and then labeled them with letters so that the cook (Chris) would not know which one contained which ingredients. After all, we did not want him to rig the experiment because he decided he trusted a certain recipe more than another.

After letting the batter sit for about 5 hours, we proceeded to part one of the experiment, determining which recipe produced the most easily cooking galette. Chris worked with an elaborate galette making apparatus, which he and Christine purchased after learning about the device from a restaurateur who was making larger quantities of these for his business. Luckily, there was a scaled down version that they could get which was perfect for a home operation.

Chris made the galettes as Christine and I watched and secretly discussed what we thought was the effect of different ingredients - the more buckwheat, the better the color, the egg made the galette gummier, the oil made the batter separate and hard to use, etc...we kept them warm in the oven as he proceeded to make enough of each so that we could conduct the taste and texture assessment.

Then Christine and I were banished from the kitchen, and Chris relabeled the galettes so that we would not know which we were eating. Now everyone was blind! We tasted them without any filling. It was fairly clear from a taste and texture perspective that there were only two real contenders for the crown of the best galette. But the decision of which one it was was impossible - one was superior on texture and the other had a better taste!

We had to proceed to the test with food. In this round, we each had a filling to eat with the galette. Chris and I had excellent venison sausage with ours, Christine had vegetables including mushroom and onion. We decided we marginally preferred the darker of the two galettes, but both appeared to be acceptable.

At this point, all was revealed and discussed. Much to Christine's surprise, the winners were the simplest recipes, and the pure buckwheat was king (though slightly inferior in texture). But...since we happened to have more batter left of the two finalists, we opted to combine them - this recipe would have half the amount of egg prescribed in the second recipe - and we decided that that one was fine indeed (having a good balance of taste and texture).

It was a great experiment. Anybody hungry?

Here's the recipe: Galette de Sarrasin (makes ~ 30 ten-inch diameter galettes)

2 kilograms buckwheat flour
1.9 liter water
1 egg
20 grams or 2 tbsp coarse /rock salt (if using table salt, use only 1 tbsp)
Butter

1) Add each ingredient in the order listed
2) Blend well together
3) Let batter sit for 2-3 hours
4) Lightly butter pan/ galette apparatus
5) Pour batter to form a thin layer
6) Cook until galette starts to curl up on the edges. Flip (easiest to use the hands).
7) Keep warm for use immediately or refridgerate for use in the next 2 days