Spring Asparagus Galette

I am sure I’m not alone in being ready for summer, for outside, for all of my friends to get vaccinated, for my kids lives to normalize so they can be off screens all day, and I know you do not get things by stamping your feet and demanding them (I may have tried) but if there’s one thing on this list we can safely take an advance on, it’s spring vegetables. Grocery store asparagus is lovely and here for us until the freshly-plucked market stuff emerges and I say we embrace it with abandon.

If we’re going to make a homemade crust — and if you do, the payoff here is immense — I want everything else to be as effortless as possible. Salting and draining sliced asparagus softens it enough that it can finish cooking to a perfect crisp-tenderness in the oven without discoloring. A mixture of cheeses, lemon, and garlic makes an unassuming-seeming base that in the oven, exceeds its potential: bubbling up and locking down the asparagus on top, and sharply flavoring everything. This is fantastic warm or at room temperature, and it keeps well in the fridge for up to a week. You won’t regret making two.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups (165 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 8 tablespoons (4 ounces or 115 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1/4 cup (60 grams) plain yogurt or sour cream
• 3 to 4 tablespoons (45 to 60 ml) cold water

• 1 pound asparagus
• Kosher salt
• 1/2 cup (125 grams) ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup (45 grams) grated gruyere, comte, or gouda cheese
• 1/4 cup (30 grams) grated parmesan or pecorino cheese
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• Red pepper flakes or freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil
• Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1 large egg or egg yolk (optional, for shine)