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Boned Squabs a La Jelee
Remove heads, feet and wings from six fine fat squabs. Split open without separating through back, and carefully bone without spoiling skin. Lay them on a table, open side up. Evenly season with teaspoon salt, two saltspoons cayenne and a saltspoon grated nutmeg, and keep till required. Finely chop a half pound lean raw veal with a half pound fresh fat pork, pound both in a mortar to a smooth paste, then add one by one the yolks of three eggs and briskly pound while adding them. Press this force through a sieve into a bowl. Place the bowl on ice, season with half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons cayenne, half saltspoon grated nutmeg and half saltspoon ground mixed allspice, and thoroughly mix with wooden spoon. Cut in quarter-inch-square pieces one ounce larding pork, one ounce cooked lean ham, one ounce cooked, smoked beef tongue and one medium truffle, and add to the force in the bowl with an ounce peeled pistachios. Mix well. Place in a saucepan three minced shallots, one branch parsley, a branch chervil, six tarragon leaves, a gill sherry, a tablespoon rum and a tablespoon truffle liquor. Let reduce on fire to half quantity. Remove, let cool off. Then strain through a cheesecloth into the bowl; thoroughly mix. Then evenly divide force in centre of the six squabs. Fold up sides to entirely envelop the squabs. Wrap each squab in a strong piece of cloth and fasten the two ends tightly. Place a mirepoix in a braising pan with the squabs, pour in enough broth or water to cover. Season with a level tablespoon salt and half teaspoon pepper. Cover pan and let boil one hour on range. Remove squabs, place and let stand on a plate five minutes. Unwrap, wash cloths in cold water and tightly wrap again in the same cloths. Place between two boards, arrange a two-pound weight on top and let stand in that condition till thoroughly cold. Unwrap, and neatly trim.
Cut four tablespoons Jelly in small square pieces. Spread on a cold dish. Then dress squabs over jelly, decorate all around with lettuce leaves. Place a very thin slice truffle on top of each and serve.
This is a galantine in miniature: six boned birds, each stuffed with a veal-and-pork forcemeat, poached in cloth, pressed cold, and served on chopped aspic. Nothing here is difficult, but the order of operations is unforgiving, and almost all the work happens before anything is cooked.
- The hinge: bone from the breast, not the backThe hinge: "Split open without separating through back" is ambiguous — it can be read as opening the bird along the breast so the back skin stays whole, or as splitting along the back without severing the bird — but either way the point is that the skin must remain an unbroken wrapper. A tear and the forcemeat escapes into the braising liquid. Work with a small sharp boning knife, cold birds, and keep the leg and wing stumps attached to the skin.
- Saltspoon and gillA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon; a gill is half a cup. So the birds get 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg between them, and the reduction starts with 1/2 cup sherry.
- SquabsSquab is a young domestic pigeon, commonly around 12-16 oz whole and still sold by game butchers and some Asian markets. Boned out, each yields far less meat than the weight suggests, which is why the forcemeat carries the dish. Cornish hens are the usual substitute but have tougher, less pliable skin.
- "Force" and "larding pork"Force is forcemeat. Larding pork is fresh unsmoked back fat cut in lardons, not bacon; the half pound of "fresh fat pork" is likewise back fat or fatty belly, unsalted and uncured. Smoked bacon in either place will dominate the whole terrine.
- Truffle liquorThe canning liquid from tinned truffles, sold as truffle juice or jus de truffe. If you have none, a tablespoon of good mushroom soaking liquid is closer in spirit than truffle oil, which is a modern flavour compound and will read as harsh next to sherry and rum.
- Mirepoix and "let boil one hour"Mirepoix here is the classic braising bed of diced carrot, onion and celery with a bay leaf. Keep the liquid at a bare simmer rather than a rolling boil for the hour, or the forcemeat swells and splits the skin. The forcemeat contains raw veal, pork and egg yolk; check that the centre of a bird reaches 165F before you take them out.
- Re-wrapping and pressingRinsing the cloths in cold water and rewrapping tightly is what gives the finished galantine its shape and its clean cut. Weight them under 2 lb of anything flat and refrigerate overnight; a warm press will not set.
- The JellyThe capitalised "Jelly" is a savoury aspic from elsewhere in the book, not fruit preserve. A clarified, well-reduced poultry or veal stock set firm will do; the chopped cubes are both garnish and seasoning.
- YieldOne bird per person, six servings, as a cold first course or a lunch dish. It is at its best on the second day and should be sliced cold, straight from the refrigerator.
The International Cook Book is Alexander Filippini's, and Filippini spent years in the Delmonico's kitchens in New York before turning to authorship and food-trade work; the dish is a restaurant chef's showpiece rather than a household supper. Galantine, generally traced to the same root as gelatine, meant exactly this operation: a bird boned, stuffed with a seasoned forcemeat studded with tongue, ham, truffle and pistachio, poached in a cloth, pressed, and served cold in its own clarified jelly. The pistachio and diced tongue are not decoration for their own sake; they were there to make a pretty mosaic on the cut face, since a galantine was judged on the slice. Squab was a fashionable and expensive bird in American hotel dining around 1900, farmed for the table and served in a way that game could not be, and a chef who could bone six of them without piercing a skin was demonstrating a skill that separated the trained kitchen from the domestic one.