Heirloom Tomato and Zaatar Galette

One of my roommates had hilariously smuggled a giant jar of zaatar back home after a work trip and got stopped at airport security by people who thought she had a giant jar of marijuana in her bag. This is hilarious for 2 reasons: the jar is huge so smuggling such a large amount would have been SO bold, plus...the jar of zaatar is seriously HUGE! It's been a few months and she has barely made a dent in it.

I've had some down time, so I felt like I needed to finally use the zaatar in something. I knew it was sort of Middle Eastern-y and had a mix of herbs like oregano and thyme in it. After thinking about how we also had a surplus of cornmeal from a prior brunch potluck, I came to the conclusion that a super easy recipe would be to make a galette! After that, I thought a tasty combo would probably include some soft cheese and a tasty fruit/veggie. 

And that's how this heirloom tomato galette was born 👌🏼

The final product

Ingredients:

This cornmeal crust recipe is from Fine Cooking

• 1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup cornmeal (I had medium, but finely ground would probably be better)
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 and 1/4 tsp salt
• 6 Tbs. unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
• 3 Tbs. olive oil
• 1/4 cup ice water

Filling:

• 4-5 heirloom tomatoes (mine were small so I used 5)
• 1 cup goat cheese
• 1/2 cup zaatar
• Salt and black pepper to taste

1. Make your crust by combining the dry ingredients and then cutting in the butter with either a pastry cutter or food processor. You can also use your hands but you want to try and keep the butter cold.
2. Gradually drizzle in the olive oil and as you're mixing, gradually add the water too. The dough will eventually come together and you can form a ball out of it.
3. Make a disc with the dough and saran wrap it. Let it chill in the fridge for at least an hour.
4. Slice up your tomatoes. I read somewhere that you could dehydrate your tomatoes (which are basically water bombs) by salting them and letting them sit in a colander. I tried this but it didn't really change after an hour so you can do this or skip this step!
5. Mix your goat cheese and your zaatar.
6. After an hour of your dough chilling, take it out and let it warm up a tad so the dough doesn't break as you're rolling it out. At this point, preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
7. Flour your table and carefully roll out the dough disc into a circular shape (the edges do not have to be perfect). 
8. Place your rolled out dough into a cast iron skillet.
9. Spoon the goat cheese and zaatar mix in and spread it out into a thin-medium layer over the crust.
10. Layer your tomatoes in a circle starting from the outside. You also don't need to do it this way but I think it looked prettier!
11. Take the edges of the crust and fold over the filling. Gently pat it so you're sure the sides are all down and kind of together.
12. You can brush the crust with an egg wash, but I just left it and put it in the preheated oven.
13. After 45-55 minutes, it was nice and bubbly, golden brown, and ready to be taken out.

Before serving, sprinkle a bit of salt and some cracked black pepper on top! I was feeling extra fancy, so I even made a video of the process for you