Ataele Kegin

Ataele Kegin · A Breton Kitchen Journal

Breton Cooking Without Vegetable Oil

Galettes, cider braises and butter pastry from the westernmost kitchens of France. Every recipe here is cooked with salted butter, lard or olive oil. Never with seed oils.

Browse the recipes About this journal
A cook seasoning a red enameled pot on the stove of a bright home kitchen

Amann First

Salted butter, beurre salé, is the first fat in every pan on this site.

Grey Sea Salt

Coarse salt raked from Atlantic marshes seasons the whole repertoire.

Buckwheat and Cider

The two quiet pillars of the Breton table, from the galette to the glass.

Never Vegetable Oil

No canola, no sunflower, no seed oils of any kind, in any recipe.

Six recipes, tested in butter

The Repertoire

A short, honest collection from the Breton coast and countryside. Pick a tab and cook.

A folded buckwheat crepe dusted with sugar on a white plate

Buckwheat Galettes with Leeks and Mushrooms

The lacy, nutty galette of Haute Bretagne, filled with leeks melted slowly in salted butter, browned mushrooms and a handful of grated cheese. The batter asks for nothing but buckwheat, water and salt, plus patience overnight.

  • Time50 min + overnight rest
  • Serves4
  • LevelModerate

Ingredients

  • 250 g buckwheat flour
  • 550 ml cold water
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp coarse grey sea salt
  • 90 g salted butter, divided
  • 2 large leeks, white and pale green, sliced
  • 250 g button or cremini mushrooms, sliced
  • 120 g grated Emmental or Gruyère
  • 2 tbsp crème fraîche
  • Freshly ground black pepper

Method

  1. Whisk the buckwheat flour, water, egg and salt into a smooth, thin batter. Cover and rest it in the refrigerator overnight, or for at least 3 hours.
  2. Melt 30 g of the butter in a wide pan over low heat. Add the leeks with a pinch of salt and cook gently for 15 minutes until silky, then stir in the crème fraîche.
  3. In a second pan, brown the mushrooms in 20 g of butter over high heat until their water has cooked away. Season and set aside with the leeks.
  4. Heat a large flat pan or crepe pan until properly hot. Grease it with a little of the remaining butter, ladle in a thin layer of batter and swirl to coat.
  5. When the edges lift and the underside is deeply browned, scatter a quarter of the cheese, leeks and mushrooms over the center.
  6. Fold the four sides in to make an open square, slide onto a warm plate, and finish with a knob of salted butter. Repeat for the remaining galettes.
In Brittany, butter is not an ingredient. It is the point.

Ataele Kegin is an independent recipe journal devoted to the table of Brittany, the granite edge of France where the butter is salted, the flour is buckwheat and the wine is cider. We test each recipe in an ordinary home kitchen with salted butter, lard or olive oil, and we publish slowly, six dishes at a time. Kegin is the Breton word for kitchen. This one is open to you.