Photos by Andrew Scrivani / New York Times News ServiceA savory summer vegetable galette features rye or whole wheat flour, eggplant, zucchini and a garnish of thyme leaves.

A pie is homey. A tart is fancy. And a galette splits the difference, but it is easier than either one.

The defining factor of a galette (which can also be called a crostata if you’ve got Italian inclinations) is that it’s a free-form pastry, baked without the stability of a pie pan or tart ring. The dough is rolled out flat, then folded around the filling. The appeal of a galette lies in its rusticity. Its juices can leak, the pastry can tear, the filling can singe at the top; it doesn’t matter. As long as you’ve used good fruit or vegetables for the filling and real butter for the dough, it will bake up into something golden brown and utterly gorgeous, the kind of pastry you’re happy to whip up anytime, not just on special occasions.

For the novice baker, mastering a forgiving galette before trying pies and tarts will give you confidence. For the baking expert, galettes offer ample opportunity for personal expression. Once you have the basic formula down, you can change it up to suit your tastes, the fruit in season, the leftover vegetables in your fridge.

This is why everyone should have a go-to galette recipe to call on when a craving for pastry hits. Here is mine.

The foundation of any good galette is its crust. You can use any dough recipe as long as it’s sturdy enough to handle without breaking.

I’ve included two variations here on the same basic dough. The first is cookielike, using sugar and white all-purpose flour to keep it delicate and flaky. It’s perfect for fruit-filled galettes.

The other has less sugar and uses whole-grain flour (rye or whole-wheat) to give it a nubby, hearty texture and more pronounced flavor. I like this to anchor savory vegetable galettes. But you can switch these up if you’d rather. Just dial down the sugar if you want to use the white flour dough for vegetables.

And when it comes to fruit, the riper, the better. Galettes are a perfect place to use up all that soft, weeping fruit on your counter. Or if you’re stuck with underripe fruit that needs a flavor boost, paint the rolled-out pastry with jam before adding the filling. Always sweeten your fruit to taste. Plums tend to need a lot of sugar, figs barely any. Add the sugar gradually, tasting as you go.

I like cornstarch as a thickener because it’s easy to find and simple to use. Just make sure the filling bubbles up vigorously as it bakes to activate its thickening power, otherwise you’ll end up with soggy pastry filled with fruit soup. Use more cornstarch for particularly juicy fruits (stone fruits like peaches, plums and nectarines) and less for pectin-rich, drier fruit like figs and blueberries.

You don’t need any thickener for a savory galette, as long as you cook any vegetables before adding them to the crust.