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Truffled Chicken
1 fat pullet, and the breasts of 2 more. 1 large can of truffles. 1/2 pound of fat salt pork. Seasonings.
Bone the fowl according to directions cut off the fille s or white meat of the other two and lay them all side by side on the table. Cut the fat pork in thin strips, score gashes in thick parts of the chic en and lay the strips in, cut the truffles and dispose the pieces evenly where they will show the b'ack spo's in the white meat when the chicken is sliced. Dredge well with salt and white pepper and a little nutmeg and powdered thyme. Then lay the chicken breasts in the thin places of the fowl, bring the two sides together and sew up the fowl into nearly its original shape. Do it up in a cloth, tie and pin it, and boil it two hours in salted broth. Press it while cooling. Take off the cloth when cold, draw out the thread it is sewed with. Serve the fowl either incased in aspic jelly, or coated with melted butter, or slice it and display the slices in a dish.
This is a galantine: a boned bird stuffed with its own kind, poached in a cloth, and served cold in slices. The whole point is the cut face of the slice, so the placement of the truffle and pork matters more than anything else in the method.
- The hinge: build for the cross-sectionLay the truffle pieces and pork strips so they are spaced through the depth of the meat, not clustered at the seam. Whatever pattern you set on the table is the pattern that shows when the cold roll is sliced, and it cannot be fixed afterwards.
- A fat pulletA young hen, perhaps 3 to 4 lb dressed. Any 3 to 4 lb chicken works; the breasts of "2 more" means the white meat of two other birds -- four breast halves -- used to pad the thin areas of the butterflied bird to an even thickness.
- Fat salt porkSalt-cured pork fatback, sold at butchers and some Latin and Southern markets. Unsmoked fresh pork belly or a piece of fatback works; if you substitute bacon the smoke will dominate. Rinse salt pork before cutting it into strips or the seasoning will read as too salty once the roll is cold.
- Canned trufflesCan sizes varied, and a "large can" here was probably still modest by modern grocery standards, a few ounces of whole or peeled truffles. Canned black truffles are still sold and are the right product here; fresh truffle is wasted in a two-hour poach. Truffle-flavoured oil will not give the black spots the recipe is built around.
- Wrapping and tyingRoll tightly in a double layer of rinsed cheesecloth, twist the ends, and tie at intervals along the length like a bolster so it cannot slump. Modern practice is to roll in plastic wrap first, then cheesecloth, which keeps the shape cleanly.
- "Boil" means a bare simmerHold the broth at 170 to 180F. A rolling boil bursts the skin, squeezes out fat and juice, and leaves the breast meat dry and grainy. Two hours is about right for a roll this size; check that the centre reaches 165F.
- Pressing and coolingCool it under a board with a modest weight, a couple of pounds, so the gelatin sets the roll dense enough to slice thin. The original says only to press it while cooling and unwrap it when cold; get it into the refrigerator once it stops steaming, and give it a full night chilled before unwrapping.
- Yield and servingRoughly 4 lb of finished galantine, which slices into 20 to 24 portions on a buffet or serves 10 to 12 as a cold main course. Save and clarify the poaching broth for the aspic; add the carcass bones to it if you want it to set firmly.
A galantine is one of the set pieces of nineteenth-century cold cookery: the bird is boned, restuffed, poached, pressed and served sliced, and the decoration is internal rather than applied. The name is generally traced to old French forms related to galantine or galatine, meaning a jellied dish, and by the time this book was printed the technique had passed from grand French kitchens into American hotel and caterer's work. The reliance on canned truffles is a mark of the date: tinned French truffles were a standard import by the late 1800s and gave a working kitchen the black-and-white marbling that made a galantine look expensive on the sideboard. Note also the cross-reference to boning "according to directions" elsewhere in the book.