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Galantine of Veal
I breast of veal I knuckle of veal ½ box of gelatine 2 cups of cold boiled ham, chopped fine 8 tablespoonfuls of dried bread crumbs 1 pint of milk ½ teaspoonful of salt 2 dashes of black pepper 2 dashes of cayenne Yolks of three eggs I onion 2 bay leaves 1 tablespoonful of chopped 3 cloves parsley 1 stalk of celery 1 teaspoonful of French mustard I small carrot I blade of mace Now Put the milk on to boil, add to it the bread crumbs; stir constantly until it thickens; then add the yolks, mustard, chopped parsley, cayenne and ham. Mix all together.
Bone the breast, sprinkle it with salt and pepper. spread the mixture over the breast, roll it up and tie with twine; then wrap it in a piece of cheese cloth and sew tightly. Put in the bottom of a soup kettle the bones from the breast, the knuckle of veal, three quarts of cold water, the onion, bay leaves, cloves, celery, carrot and blade of mace. Place it over a moderate fire, and bring slowly to a boil.
As soon as it boils, skim carefully, add a tablespoonful of salt, and then put in the breast of veal; simmer for three hours, then take out the veal, remove the cloth, put the veal on a flat dish, and stand away to cool. Cover the gelatine with a half cup of cold water, and let it soak one hour. Simmer the knuckle one hour after removing the veal, then add to it the gelatine strained through a sieve, and clarify the same as Bouillon. Season with salt and pepper, and put away to cool, but not harden. When cool, put a layer of the liquid in the bottom of a mould large enough to hold the veal, stand it on the ice, and, when hard, place the veal on top of it, and pour the remainder of the liquor in the mould. (There should be just enough to cover the veal.) Stand in a very cold place over night. When ready to serve, wipe the outside of the mould with a warm towel, place a meat dish over the top of the mould, turn it upside down, and remove the mould carefully, leaving the galantine in centre of dish. Garnish with parsley, and serve with sauce Tartare.
A full-scale cold buffet centrepiece: a boned, stuffed veal breast poached in its own stock, then set in aspic made from that stock. Nothing here is difficult, but it wants two days and a butcher who will talk to you.
- The hinge: keep it at a bare simmerOnce the stock boils and is skimmed, the liquid should never return to a rolling boil with the veal in it. Hard boiling drives fat and albumin back into the broth, which ruins the clarity of the aspic, and it squeezes the roll so the stuffing bursts through the seams.
- Buying the meatA breast of veal boned and butterflied is a special order at most counters; ask the butcher to bone it and take the bones home with you. The "knuckle" is the veal shank or hock, wanted purely for the gelatin it gives up. Together with the breast bones it is what makes the stock set.
- Half a box of gelatineBox sizes varied by maker; a common reckoning is about 1 oz to the box, which would make half a box roughly 4 teaspoons, or about two modern envelopes. Treat it as insurance on top of the natural gelatin from the shank; if your reduced stock already jells firmly on a cold saucer, use less or skip it.
- Ingredients by other names"French mustard" here means a prepared mustard of the French type; Dijon is the usual modern stand-in. A blade of mace is a piece of the aril that sheathes the nutmeg seed, sold ground if you cannot find whole blades: roughly a quarter teaspoon. "Dried bread crumbs" means plain oven-dried crumbs, not seasoned packaged ones.
- Wrapping the rollTie the rolled breast at 1-inch intervals with butcher's twine, then wrap in a double layer of rinsed cheesecloth and stitch or tie the ends closed. The cloth keeps the stuffing in and lets you lift the hot, slippery roll out of the kettle in one piece.
- Clarifying the aspic"The same as Bouillon" in books of this period normally means whisking in lightly beaten egg white with the crushed shell, bringing the stock slowly to a shiver so the raft forms, then ladling it through a cloth-lined sieve without stirring. Strain the soaked gelatine in and taste for salt while the liquid is still warm; aspic tastes flat when cold, so season a shade high.
- Chilling, safely and properly"A very cold place over night" means the refrigerator. Cool the poached veal and the stock quickly rather than leaving a large hot mass standing at room temperature, and give the moulded galantine at least 8 hours at 40F or below to set through.
- Yield and servingServing -- Unmould onto a chilled platter, slice with a thin, sharp knife wiped between cuts to keep the aspic edges clean, and serve the tartare sauce alongside rather than over.
Galantine is an old French kitchen word, usually traced to the same root as gelatine "jelly" by way of Old French galatine, though the derivation is not settled. Boned, stuffed, poached and pressed meats of this kind were a mainstay of the nineteenth-century garde-manger, where they solved the problem of feeding a large table without a hot kitchen: the fire is lit once, for three or four hours, and what comes off it is sliced cold for days afterward. Veal breast suits the job because it is thin, wide and gelatinous, and the accompanying knuckle supplies further natural gelatin. The dish belongs to a period when a cook was expected to know what "clarify the same as Bouillon" meant without being told twice.