No. 2498

Galantine of Suckling Pig

Galantine de Cochon de Lait

Prepare a suckling pig the same as for No. 1810, singe and bone it completely without piercing the skin, keeping on the four feet and removing the head. Remove the meat or fat from the different parts where there is too much. Stuff the galantine with a salpicon of truffles, one pound of red tongue mixed with pork forcemeat (No. 68) and a pound of blanched fat pork--the truffles, red tongue and fat pork cut in three-sixteenth inch squares. Season with salt, prepared red pepper (No. 168) and nutmeg; wrap it up in a cloth and roll without pulling or shortening the length of the skin and keeping the feet in their natural position. Lay it in a braziere lined with fat pork and garnish around with vegetables and uncooked pig's feet; moisten with white wine, season with salt and whole peppers, and let cook without boiling for four to five hours. Drain, cool, unwrap partly and roll up again, then tie the cloth firmly at both ends of the galantine, and hang it up with a sufficiently strong weight on the bottom. When thoroughly cold, unwrap and glaze it a dark color; put back the head, which has been blanched for half an hour and allowed to cool, and decorate the whole with fanciful cuts of egg-white, tongue, truffles, gherkins and ornamental hatelets; dress on a rice foundation and surround with chopped jelly and jelly croutons.

← No. 2497 Galantine of Pullet or Capon a la Mozart The Cold Service No. 2499 Galantine of Turkey a la Berger—Boned Turkey →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer wrote this for a Delmonico's pantry with a butcher, a larder cook and a garde-manger on staff, and the instructions assume all three. The hinge is the phrase let cook without boiling: a galantine held at a bare simmer stays plump and sliceable, while a boil ruptures the skin, renders the fat pork out of the salpicon and leaves the roll grey and crumbling.

The cross-referencesNo. 1810 is Ranhofer's earlier suckling pig preparation; No. 68 is his pork forcemeat; No. 168 is his "prepared red pepper," a cayenne-based seasoning. Look up the originals for their exact make-up; failing that, substitute a plain pork forcemeat and straight cayenne, sparingly.
BraziereA braisiere is a deep, heavy, tight-lidded braising pan, not a casserole dish. Any covered roaster or stockpot long enough to hold the pig without bending it will do; the length of the vessel dictates the length of the finished galantine.
Cooking temperature"Without boiling" means holding the liquid at a bare simmer, roughly 175-185F, with the pan covered; on a burner watch that the bottom does not run hotter than the rest. Four to five hours is what Ranhofer allows for a whole boned suckling pig; the roll is done when a skewer meets no resistance at the thickest point.
Red tongueCured, brined beef tongue, cooked and peeled, cut in the same 3/16-inch dice as the truffle and fat pork. It is used for its pink color in the slice as much as for flavor. Fat pork means fresh unsmoked back fat, blanched to firm it, not bacon.
The weighted hangHanging the wrapped roll with a weight compresses the forcemeat so the slices hold together. Do this in the refrigerator, not at room temperature: a large roll of cooked pork takes many hours to cool through, and the original kitchen had a cold larder that modern rooms do not replicate.
Glazing and the head"Glaze it a dark color" means brushing with reduced meat glaze or a dark aspic, coat by coat, on a thoroughly chilled surface. The blanched head is purely architectural, refitted to the body to reassemble the animal for the buffet; Ranhofer does not say how it is held in place.
Rice foundation and hateletsThe socle was a molded plinth of cooked rice paste, decorative and not intended to be eaten, and hatelets are ornamental silver skewers threaded with truffle and glazed vegetables. Both are period display conventions; a chilled platter and a border of chopped aspic give the same effect.
Yield and serviceRanhofer gives no weight for the pig and no number of covers; a galantine of a whole suckling pig stuffed as directed will serve a large cold table. Slice it thin, cold, on a chilled board, and keep it refrigerated until the moment it goes out.

A Little History

Galantine is generally traced to the Old French galatine or galantine for a jellied dish; the word has also long been linked, on uncertain evidence, to geline, an old word for hen, which is why the classic galantine is a boned bird. Whatever its root, the technique is fixed: an animal boned out without breaking the skin, restuffed with a forcemeat studded with truffle and tongue, poached in its own gelatinous broth, pressed cold and glazed. Charles Ranhofer placed this pig among the great set pieces of The Cold Service (1894), the chapter that catalogues the buffet showpieces of Delmonico's in New York, where a reassembled suckling pig on a rice socle, ringed with jelly croutons and spiked with silver hatelets, was meant to be looked at for some time before anyone was allowed to cut it. The style belongs to the great age of the cold table, when a restaurant's reputation rested partly on the garde-manger's ability to make cooked meat look like a sculpture.