It’s been a long time since mom and I cooked something new together. I don’t think Friendsgiving or Christmas count. Although it should. Our entire family came north to Pennsylvania this year to celebrate together. It’s been eight years since the last time we did that. It was also an added bonus that mom was celebrating her 80th birthday on January 5. John and Johnny stayed a little longer, so we went out to Capital Grille on her birthday. OMG delicious. My first time there. Not cheap but very good.

I created a list of dishes I thought would be fun to make this year. Mom selected the mushroom galette from the list. Erika made the dish a couple years ago. It was the first time I tasted Maitake mushrooms and was astonished at how delicious they were. They truly taste like chicken. A galette is a free-form, single crust “tart” with either a savory or sweet filling. One of the reasons to love a galette is that it requires no special pie dish or tart pan. You simply fold the buttery galette crust edges over themselves to hold in all the filling.

I found a few recipes as inspiration, and cobbled something together based on two of them. This basic galette pastry recipe was almost full proof. It was definitely a good one to start with. But if you’re afraid of butter, it might not be for you. It was flaky well done and held up to the rest of the ingredients. It only has four ingredients: flour, salt, butter and cold water. The food processor did all the work. Love it. While the dough was chilling in the fridge, we caramelized onions, cooked the Maitake mushrooms, and prepared everything so we would put it together easily.

I enjoy caramelized onions, but I forgot how long it takes to make them so delicious. It is approximately 20 to 30 minutes. But damn they’re good. To cook the maitake we first pulled apart the shrooms. It’s easy to do, once you get the process down. What, you’ve never eaten Maitake mushrooms before? Living in the mushroom capital of the world does have its benefits; we have relatively easy access to exotic mushrooms and plain old boring ones too.

Maitake are delicate and earthy mushroom, some say that are one of the finest fungi on the market, despite the fact that it’s not as popular as other foods in its category. They are commonly known as hen-of-the-woods, maitake’s lacy sides make it a great option for frying, dicing, and adding a visual flair (and earthy taste) to many dishes. This mushroom is harder to find in the grocery store than the usual button, porcini, shiitake or portobello.

The Maitake is cooked in olive oil, salt, pepper and yes Ginger cannot pass up adding butter to the mushrooms. If you know my mother she has a thing with butter like no one I never have known before. It was ready for assembly. First we rolled out the dough to a circle-ish shape. Then we spread crème fraîche on the dough, added caramelized onions, a mound of mushrooms, Gruyere cheese, and fresh thyme. The fun part is folding up the edges and popping that beautiful tart in the oven. That’s a 400° oven for 45 minutes. It seemed too high and long, but it worked out perfectly.

Will we make it again? Absolutely. It was delicious. I am not fond of cooked mushrooms but this is one way I will definitely eat them again. The crust was just done beautifully, golden brown and cooked perfectly. The combination of flavors were really delicious.

For fun I added a few family photos of the holidays.