What Happens When Everything Goes Wrong in the Kitchen

Or how I learned how to adapt more than just recipes

The Capsule Pantry in one sentence: Eat incredibly well, save time, money, and food waste with our highly customizable recipes designed to adapt to what you love to eat and have in your pantry. Access all recipes for $5 a month or $50 a year

My parents are not foodies.

They think pizza is made from pastry because they once saw it in a 1970s food magazine. And my mother likes to put peas on to boil the moment a whole chicken goes into the oven. One hour later the chicken is perfect. The peas are not.

But I’m at their house this weekend. And I decided to challenge myself.

The Capsule Pantry is all about adapting recipes and making do with what you have.

Could I do that in this house? The house where I just found grated mozzarella in a Tupperware with a piece of Stilton on top because my father’s tastebuds have been shot to pieces for a decade so can’t taste the difference between the two? A house that is almost empty of food on a Saturday because my parents only go to the supermarket on a Monday?

Is it possible to make a delicious dinner for four people in this environment?

I was so sure I could. Until this happened.

5 pm Look in the fridge

There are two large tomatoes, a block of plastic-looking mild cheddar cheese, and the aforementioned Stilton-Mozzarella affront to the cheese Gods in there. That’s pretty much it aside from milk, eggs, butter, and coffee.

Tomato galette! Surely all that needs is some pastry, mustard, and tomatoes. Sure enough, I find some wholegrain mustard and flour in the cupboard. I also find a rogue onion.

OK, this is going to be freaking awesome. I’m worried there aren’t enough tomatoes so I’ll improvise by adding some caramelised onions. This is going to be siiiiiick.

5.10 pm Caramelise the onions

I’m super smug at this point. The onions are frying nicely and I’ve got Gossip Girl on my phone to keep me company (I know it’s trash but I love trash, especially of the Y2K kind). I’m happily turning my onions into a goopy, sweet mess whilst Serena and Blair fight it out on screen.

6.15 pm Pastry time

I’ve not made shortcrust pastry since I was 15 but I remember everything has to be cold. I even remembered to put the butter in the fridge an hour ago to firm up. It’s not exactly cold — my parents like to keep their fridge warmer than it should to save money — but hey, it’ll be fine. I make the pastry and diligently place it in the fridge for another 30 minutes.

6.45 pm Roll and regret

I’ve got no herbes de Provence so I substitute with dried rosemary. No gruyere so plastic cheddar will have to do. I’m Capsule Pantrying the hell out of this and I’m happy about it.

I’m rollin’ that pastry. I’m shapin’ it until it looks almost perfect. I’m also wondering —how the heck am I going to get this galette from the counter onto the baking sheet. No recipe I’ve checked says anything about that, so I guess I can just… pick it up using a couple of fish slices?

Yeah. That’ll work.

In news to no one, the galette is a) too heavy to move and b) sticks to the counter. I shout for backup from my mum and husband. They suggest pushing a thin chopping board under the galette. As we try a three-way shift and slide, it tears down the middle.

I’m pissed. NOPE. I’M ORDERING TAKEAWAY.

7 pm Super Mum to the rescue

Tonight, I’m reminded where my style of cooking — The Capsule Pantry way — comes from. As I’m throwing a hissy fit, my mother says something she’s said to me thousands of times before.

There’s always a way.

She suggests we take off the tomatoes and move the pastry without them.

That doesn’t work. The mustard and onions are welded to the bottom of the pastry. It’s wet and soggy with the egg wash I smeared on the edges of the galette.

There’s only one thing for it. We mix it together. Mustard, eggwash, onions, pastry, the lot.

It’s goo. In a fit of annoyance, I throw a ton of flour over the mess and keep going until I can roll it out. All to a chorus of this is going to be shit, this is going to be shit (from me, I might add, not my mother. She doesn’t swear and believes in me far more than I do).

I transfer the now mustard, caramelised onion and egg-enriched pastry onto an oiled baking sheet. I re-arrange the tomatoes, cheese, and herbs. It goes in the oven.

And I pray.

30 minutes later…

This comes out:

I grumble the whole time I’m serving. I profusely apologise to my family about the state of it. It’s not meant to look like this. The pastry will be awful. The tomatoes will be tasteless. The tart will be dry.

I sit down and take a bite.

OK, even as the world’s harshest food critic (on myself), it’s not that bad. The oven has worked its magic on the tomatoes. The pastry has crisped up. The mustard and onion pastry is, admittedly, kinda delicious, if a bit heavy.

I turn to my family. What do they think?

My husband is my husband. He’s nice about it because he’s a nice person.

My father squirts a metric ton of Sriracha chili sauce over the whole thing because it’s the only way he can taste anything. So his opinion is out.

And my mother? The one who helped me turn the galette from a soggy mess into something actually edible?

She turns to me and declares:

What a great pizza!

---

Upgrade for $5 a month or $50 a year to gain access to weekly Capsule Pantry recipes, kitchen tips and hacks and the full TCP recipe archives

---

Tomato galette (done properly)

Serves 4-6

The pastry

Do yourself a favour and buy store-bought shortcrust or puff pastry. If you really want to torture yourself, shortcrust goes like this:

• 170g / 6oz plain flour

• 85g / 3 oz chilled butter, cut into cubes

• Pinch sea salt

• 2-3 tbsp chilled water

The filling

• Optional — 1 onion cut into half moons and sweated down in a pan with a knob of butter for 30-40 minutes.

• Dijon mustard — enough to smear on the bottom of a 12inch circle of pastry.

• Gruyere cheese (or another hard cheese like Cheddar or Comté)

• Tomatoes. 3-4 medium-sized, cut into slices, a big handful of cherry tomatoes halved or a mix of both.

• 2 tsp Dried herbes de Provence (thyme, rosemary, oregano in any combination)

• Optional — egg for an egg wash.

Make the pastry by rubbing the flour, salt, and chilled butter with your fingers until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Add the water and mix into a dough. Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Place your tomato slices into a colander. Sprinkle with salt and turn. Leave the tomatoes to drain for 30 minutes.

Pre-heat your oven to 180C/350F.

Roll out your pastry into a 12-inch / 30 cm disc. Transfer onto an oiled baking tray.

Smear the mustard onto the bottom of the pastry leaving a 3/4-inch border.

If you’re using them, layer your onions on top of the mustard. Next, layer the tomatoes.

Finely grate cheese over the tomatoes until there’s a fine dusting over the whole thing. Finish with a sprinkle of the herbes de Provence.

Fold over the pastry border. If you want a deeper crust, whisk an egg in a mug and use a pastry brush to paint the egg over the pastry border.

Place in the oven, cook for 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden and the tomatoes are cooked.