No. 2429

Bastion a l'Americaine

Bone thoroughly six chickens weighing two pounds each; suppress the sinews and trim the meats evenly. To six pounds of chopped forcemeat for chicken galantines (No. 65) add one pound of lean cooked ham, well chopped, and half a pound of chopped truffle peelings; mix the whole well together with two gills of Madeira wine and one gill of brandy. Spread out the boned chickens on the table, season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, and fill each one first with an eight-ounce layer of the forcemeat, then here and there lay two ounces of peeled, sliced truffle, a few pistachio nuts and some red beef tongue cut into quarter-inch squares, and over these spread another eight-ounce layer of forcemeat; repeat with the same quantity of truffles, tongue and pistachios and finish filling the chickens with the remainder of the forcemeat, dividing it equally between the chickens; they should all be of equal weight, about two pounds each. Enclose the stuffing well and roll them up into long, well-rounded shapes; wrap each galantine tightly in a cloth, tie it on both ends, also in the center, and place them in a saucepan with the bones, parings and a dozen calves' feet split lengthwise in two; moisten with stock (No. 194a) and boil, skim and cook slowly for two hours, then drain. Fifteen minutes later unwrap and re-enclose them again in a clean cloth, tie as before and make a loop on one end to hang them up by, and let get cold, suspended from a hook, and to the other end attach a weight to pull the cloth down and thereby pressing the galantine. After they have been left hanging for six hours, unwrap and lay them aside in a cool place. Have a bastion mold the same as shown in Fig. 454; it is made in two pieces, one large one and a smaller one on top; incrust it in chopped ice and decorate according to the illustration with tongue, truffles and egg-whites; imitate the door with chopped pistachios mixed with jelly and coat the decoration with a thick layer of jelly; lay it flat on a very straight table, also the tower, then unwrap the galantines, pare off the ends and put one at each end or turret, two in the center and one cut lengthwise in two and placed in the mold so that the flat side faces the door, thus making five galantines for the large mold; now place one in the tower mold and with the pieces left over fill the four cupolas surmounting the four towers; allow the molds to get thoroughly cold for six to eight hours, then unmold on a long socle and trim around with square croutons to imitate the battlements; stick a small pointed ornament in each cupola. The piece is now ready to serve.

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For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a showpiece from the cold buffet: six chicken galantines assembled inside a jelly-lined mold shaped like a fortress. The cooking is straightforward; the architecture is the work. A few things need translating before anyone attempts it.

The hinge: even weight, tight rollRanhofer wants the filled birds all of equal weight and rolled into uniform cylinders; his "about two pounds each" reads as the stuffing allotted to each chicken, the birds themselves having weighed two pounds apiece before boning. Weigh the forcemeat into each bird rather than eyeballing it, so the rolls match in diameter and sit level in the mold.
GillsA gill is half a cup. Two gills of Madeira is one cup, one gill of brandy is half a cup, for six pounds of forcemeat.
Calves' feetThe split feet are there for gelatin: they give the poaching stock enough body to set as the clear jelly used for coating and filling the mold. Powdered gelatin bloomed in strained, clarified stock does the same job, though the mouthfeel is a little less silky; it needs to be a good deal firmer than a table jelly to hold a decoration upright and survive unmolding.
Truffle peelingsThe trimmings left from paring truffles round, sold cheap in tins in the 1890s and still available today. They are for flavor, not looks; the sliced truffles laid in the layers are the ones that show on the cut face.
Cooking and donenessThe recipe brings the pan to a boil, skims, then cooks slowly for two hours; judge by an instant-read thermometer at the center rather than the clock: 165F. After skimming keep it at a bare simmer, or the forcemeat's fat breaks out and the galantine goes grainy.
Cooling, which needs changingThe original hangs the rewrapped galantines at room temperature for six hours under a weight. Press them, but press them in the refrigerator, between boards or in a hotel pan with a weight on top. Six hours at kitchen temperature sits squarely in the range where cooked poultry forcemeat spoils.
The molds and the iceA bastion mold is a two-piece decorative mold, a large lower fort and a small upper tower; "incrust it in chopped ice" means to bed it in ice so the jelly sets against the chilled metal. Modern equivalents: any deep straight-sided terrine or charlotte molds, chilled hard in the freezer, with the decor set in successive thin layers of aspic. A socle is the base the finished piece stands on, traditionally rice paste or fat, now more sensibly a chilled platter.
YieldSix two-pound chickens, boned, plus something over seven pounds of forcemeat, truffle, tongue and pistachio make a very large quantity of galantine, on the order of fifteen pounds or more. This is banquet food for a great many thin slices, and there is no sensible way to scale the mold down without abandoning the design.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its cold service chapter is essentially a catalogue of pièces montées — constructed centerpieces meant to stand on a buffet and be admired before they were cut. A bastion is the projecting work of a fortress wall, and the mold Ranhofer illustrates builds one in aspic, complete with turrets, cupolas, a pistachio-green door and crouton battlements. Galantine itself is an old word, generally traced to the Old French galatine for a jellied dish, though the derivation is not settled; boned, stuffed and jellied poultry was being made long before it became a nineteenth-century display piece. What the recipe really documents is the labor available in a great American restaurant kitchen of the 1890s: six chickens boned whole, a pound of ham chopped by hand, truffles bought by the peeling, and a decoration nobody would eat until it had been looked at.