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Fowl, Galantine Of
Open a fine fowl down the back, bone, and then cut out the flesh in long narrow strips, without injuring the skin; leave enough meat as a lining to prevent the skin from bursting. Fill in the space (first spreading out the fowl with the breast downwards) with a good forcemeat, about half an inch thick; then place the strips of fowl and strips of boiled tongue in layers, with a few truffles between if they can be had. Fill up with alternate forcemeat and the strips of fowl, etc. Shape the bird nicely, and enclose it in a delicate white cloth. Have ready in a stewpan enough stock to cover the fowl. Put with it a knuckle of veal and a calf's foot, and stew gently for three-quarters of an hour; then add salt and pepper, a clove, and a bunch of sweet herbs, and stew for another hour, keeping the lid of the pan closed. When the fowl is taken up, continue to boil the stock till it will jelly. Clarify, and when cold ornament the gelantine with it, cut in any form liked. If the fowl be cold, remove it from the cloth, glaze and cover with a mixture of bread-crumbs and grated roasted chestnuts, and garnish with the jelly, and hard-boiled eggs in halves, alternately.
A Victorian galantine is a boned bird rebuilt as a striped loaf, poached in a gelatinous stock and served cold. Nothing here is difficult, but the sequence matters and the book assumes a great deal of kitchen knowledge.
- The hinge: keep the skin wholeEverything depends on boning the bird from the back with the skin unbroken, since the skin is the casing that holds the loaf together. Work with a small sharp boning knife, scrape rather than cut against the bone, and take particular care at the wing joints and along the ridge of the breastbone where the skin is thinnest. Any tears can be patched from trimmings before rolling.
- "A fine fowl"In this period "fowl" usually meant a chicken, commonly an older and tougher bird than a modern one. A 4 to 5 lb roasting chicken is a reasonable equivalent and will bone and poach perfectly well.
- ForcemeatThe recipe gives no formula and assumes you know one. A veal-and-pork forcemeat is typical: lean veal and fat pork minced twice, bound with breadcrumbs soaked in stock and egg, seasoned with mace, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Any good pork sausagemeat lightened with breadcrumb and egg will do. Fry a teaspoonful and taste it before you build the galantine; cold food needs bolder seasoning than hot.
- The clothRoll the stuffed bird firmly in a doubled piece of scalded muslin or a clean tea towel, then tie it along its length like a bolster with string every inch or so. Tie the ends tightly. Cheesecloth alone is too loose. It should be snug enough to shape the loaf but not so tight that the forcemeat squeezes out at the seams.
- Knuckle of veal and calf's footThese supply the gelatin that makes the stock set, as well as flavour and body, and both are special-order items now. A pig's trotter or two, split, does the same job; failing that, poach in a good chicken stock and set the finished jelly with powdered gelatin, from about 1/4 oz per pint upwards depending on how firm you need it to be for cutting.
- Cooking time and temperatureThe total of about an hour and three-quarters is right for a 4 to 5 lb bird, but keep the liquid at a bare tremble around 180F. A rolling boil bursts the skin and squeezes the forcemeat dry. The galantine is done when the centre reaches 165F on an instant-read thermometer pushed through the cloth.
- Press it as it coolsThe recipe does not say so, but a galantine that is not pressed will slice raggedly. Lift it out still in its cloth, retie tightly, lay it on a tray with a board and a couple of tins on top, and chill overnight. Only then unwrap and glaze.
- Clarifying the jellyReduce the strained cooking liquor until a spoonful sets firm on a cold saucer, then clarify with lightly beaten egg whites and their crushed shells: whisk in off the heat, bring slowly to a simmer without stirring, let the raft form, and ladle the clear liquid through a scalded cloth. Set some in a shallow tray to chop for garnish.
- Truffles and chestnutsThe recipe itself treats truffle as optional ("if they can be had"); a layer of blanched pistachios or strips of cooked ham gives the same effect in section. The chestnut-and-crumb coating is a period finish and can simply be left off in favour of a plain aspic glaze.
- YieldServes ten to twelve as a cold course, cut in thin slices. It keeps three or four days covered in the refrigerator.
The galantine belongs to the elaborate cold buffet of the nineteenth century: a whole bird boned, reconstructed, poached, pressed and glazed so that each slice shows a deliberate mosaic of pale meat, dark tongue and truffle. The name is generally traced to the Old French galatine, a jellied dish, and the word's association with gelatin is no accident, since the calf's foot and veal knuckle exist only to produce a stock that sets hard enough to carve into decorative shapes. In Cassell's the entry appears as "Fowl, Galantine Of", the inverted form of an alphabetical dictionary heading. Dishes like this also made economic sense in a large household: a single fowl, stretched with forcemeat and tongue, fed a dozen at a cold supper, kept for days in a cool larder, and needed no last-minute attention from anyone.