No. 2423

Voliere Galantine of Pheasants a la Casimir Perier

Voliere Galantine de Faisans a la Casimir Perier

Procure two fine English pheasants with handsome plumage, remove the skin with the feathers from the neck and upper breast, also the wings and tails, being careful not to destroy their beauty. Fix the heads in such a way that they retain their natural appearance. Bone the pheasants, spread them open on a cloth. Prepare half a pound of peeled truffles cut in quarter-inch squares, half a pound of fat livers the same size; make a forcemeat with three-quarters of a pound of white game breasts and one pound and a quarter of pork tenderloin, also adding two pounds of fat pork. Chop the whole separately and very finely, season with galantine spices (No. 168) and pound to a pulp; press it through a sieve, afterward adding some finely chopped truffle peelings; mix this well with the squares of truffles and fat livers, also a few pistachios. Season the pheasants, divide the forcemeat in two parts, one for each bird, and fill them with it; roll the two galantines in separate napkins, tie firmly at both ends and in the center; cook in a game stock made with parings of white meat game; when well done take them out and leave to cool off slightly; rewrap in the same napkins after cleansing them in clear water, having them six inches long; tie them up tight at the ends and leave to cool under a light weight; unwrap when cold and glaze over with a not too thick brown chaudfroid (No. 594). Ornament one end with the head, and the other with the tail, placing the wings on the sides, keeping them in position with skewers; the necks should be strongly salted and have a rather thick wire inserted in the bone of the head, then stuffed with cotton so that it resumes its original size and shape; finish with an oval piece of cardboard about three inches in length. Dress the pheasants on small oval socles from four to five inches high, these to be made of tin covered with noodle paste (No. 142), glazed and decorated, then placed on a larger socle, regarding the details for which see drawing. These tin socles can be replaced by others made either of stearin or carved rice, or else an oval pie crust the same size as the tin ones. On the edge of the socle lay small cases, each one to contain a truffle glazed over with game glaze (No. 398), or garnished with foies-gras, or else small boned birds stuffed, braised and glazed with brown chaudfroid (No. 594).

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For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a competition showpiece from Delmonico's kitchen: two boned pheasants, stuffed and poached, then reassembled with their own heads, wings and tails on a raised stand. The eating part is straightforward charcuterie; the rest is display work.

The hinge: cook to temperature, not to timeRanhofer says only "when well done." A galantine of this size, poached gently in stock at a bare shiver (around 175F, never boiling), should reach 165F at the center, the safe figure for a game-and-pork forcemeat; timing will vary with the thickness of the roll, so go by a probe rather than the clock. Boiling will squeeze the fat out of the forcemeat and leave it grainy.
Weighting and chillingCooling under a light weight is what gives the slice its dense, even face. Chill overnight in the stock if you can, then rewrap and press; a board with a couple of tins on it is enough. Too much weight forces out the jelly.
"Fat livers"This means foie gras, cut in quarter-inch dice, not ordinary poultry liver. If substituting duck or chicken liver, the texture will be firmer and the flavor sharper; keep the dice cold so they hold their shape in the farce.
"Fat pork"Two pounds of hard back fat, unsalted, not belly or bacon. It is the binder and the moisture; reducing it will give you a dry, crumbly slice. Pass everything through a chilled grinder rather than pounding by hand.
Galantine spicesRanhofer's No. 168 is his composed spice mixture; check the numbered entry for the exact proportions, but it is of the pepper/nutmeg/clove-and-dried-herb family. Any good quatre-epices or pate spice works. Season the raw farce, then poach a teaspoon of it and taste before committing the whole batch.
Napkins and wrappingA linen napkin tied at both ends is the period method; wet cheesecloth over a double layer of plastic wrap, then foil, does the same job and is easier to unwrap without tearing the surface. "Having them six inches long" is ambiguous as written; it most plausibly fixes the length of the finished roll, but the sentence could equally be read as describing the cloths.
Chaudfroid and glazeNo. 594 is a brown chaudfroid, essentially a reduced game espagnole set with aspic. It must be applied at the point where it coats a cold spoon and no warmer, over a thoroughly chilled and dried galantine; too hot and it slides off, too cool and it goes lumpy.
Socles and stearinA socle is the raised pedestal the dish sits on. Stearin is candle material and not food at all; carved rice is a stiff rice paste, food-derived but not made to be eaten. Modern practice is a covered wooden or foam base, and nothing that touches the wax or the tin should touch anything eaten.
The plumage is decoration, never foodSkin, head, wings and tail are dry-salted and wired, not cooked. Keep them entirely separate from the finished galantine, handle them before and not during assembly, and wash thoroughly; raw game feathers and skin carry the usual bacterial load.
YieldTwo rolls of roughly four pounds each. Sliced thin as a cold buffet centerpiece, that serves thirty to forty.

A Little History

The voliere — literally an aviary — belongs to a long tradition of serving a bird redressed in its own plumage, a medieval banquet conceit that survived into nineteenth-century grand cuisine as a purely visual flourish on the cold buffet. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894, and its cold service section is essentially a catalogue of such set pieces, each named for a patron, an occasion or a public figure. The Casimir-Perier name points to the French political dynasty: Casimir Pierre Perier was a banker and Louis-Philippe's premier in the 1830s, while his grandson Jean Casimir-Perier became President of the Republic in 1894, the year the book appeared — the dedication is generally taken to honor one or the other, though Ranhofer, as usual, does not say. What the recipe really records is the economics of a kitchen that could afford half a pound of truffles and half a pound of foie gras for a dish most guests would look at rather than eat.