No. 2487

Galantine of Duckling, Pear-Shaped

Galantine de Caneton en Forme de Poire

Bone a cleaned and singed duckling, leaving on one leg; season the inside meats and fill with pounded galantine forcemeat (No. 65) mixed with half as much baking forcemeat (No. 81), and a salpicon of lambs' sweetbreads, mushrooms and truffles, to be cut in quarter-inch squares, also some cooked and cold veal udder. Restore the duckling to its original shape, sew it up, inclosing its contents, and mold it in a bottomless mold, shaped like a pear; braise in a mirepoix stock (No. 419) for an hour and a half in a slack oven, basting frequently. When done drain and place this mold on a buttered baking sheet and leave it to cool under the pressure of a weight; glaze over with a light green chaudfroid sauce (No. 595), smear one side of the galantine with a piece of wadding that has been rubbed on very finely powdered carmine, and coat with a layer of half-set jelly; at the end stick in either a natural or artificial pear-stalk with a few leaves around and surround, when dished, with a border of chopped jelly and croutons.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A Delmonico's cold-buffet showpiece: a boned duckling stuffed, molded into a pear, braised, chilled under weight, then masked and decorated. Most of the work is in the boning and the finish, and the recipe leans on cross-references Ranhofer expects you to look up.

The hinge: cook to temperature, not to the clockA stuffed, tightly rolled duckling packed into a mold heats slowly and unevenly, and ninety minutes in a slack oven is no guarantee. Braise until the center of the forcemeat reaches 165F on an instant-read thermometer; below that the pounded veal and poultry farce is genuinely risky, and the galantine will be served cold with no second chance.
"Slack oven"Around 275-300F. The mirepoix stock should barely tremble around the mold, not boil, or the forcemeat will contract and weep fat.
Leave a leg onRanhofer says only to bone the duckling "leaving on one leg"; he does not say why. Note that the pear-stalk at the finish is a separate natural or artificial one stuck in at the end.
The cross-referenced forcemeatsNo. 65 is Ranhofer's pounded galantine forcemeat and No. 81 his baking forcemeat; their compositions are given in the book's forcemeat section. If you are not working from the book, use a fine veal-and-pork farce with half its weight of a firmer bound stuffing, following the recipe's "half as much," so the slices hold together when cut cold.
Veal udder and lambs' sweetbreadsVeal udder (tétine) was a standard larder item for its bland, gelatinous set; it is effectively unobtainable now, and blanched veal sweetbreads or a little more back fat serve the same purpose. Lamb sweetbreads must be soaked, blanched, peeled and pressed before they are diced for the salpicon.
Bottomless moldA ring or tube of metal open top and bottom, stood on a tray, so the galantine can be pressed straight down onto the sheet. A loaf tin lined with plastic, or a pear-shaped mousse ring, does the same job; the weight goes on top while it chills overnight.
Chaudfroid and carmineChaudfroid (No. 595) is a velouté or béchamel set with aspic, tinted green here; the recipe does not say what the coloring is. Carmine is cochineal, still sold as a food color; the "wadding" is a cotton pad used to blush one cheek of the pear. Both coatings need the galantine bone-cold and the sauce at the point of setting, or it slides off.
Aspic and finishingThe half-set jelly glaze wants two or three thin coats, chilling between each. Chopped jelly is set aspic diced on a wet knife. The pear stalk is decoration only and should be removed before carving.
YieldA boned and stuffed duckling of this size gives roughly a dozen thin cold slices, which is how it was meant to be served: on a buffet, sliced across, with the croutons and chopped jelly.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some three decades running the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry belongs to the long cold-service chapter that fed the restaurant's ball suppers and banquet buffets. A galantine is a boned bird reassembled around forcemeat, poached or braised and served cold in its own jelly; the name is generally traced to Old French galantine, itself often linked to gelatine, and the technique is medieval in origin. What is distinctly nineteenth-century is the disguise. Cold-buffet cookery of the period prized trompe-l'oeil: hams molded as melons, and here a duckling pressed into a pear, blushed with carmine on one cheek and finished with a real stalk and leaves. The point was to be recognized as artifice from across the room.