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Galantine of Turkey

Chilled turkey aspic served in cups with pickled beet, egg yolk, minced turkey, on lettuce with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,562 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Galantine of Turkey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Boil the turkey in cold water until the meat slips from the bones.

  2. Remove the meat while hot.

  3. Let the meat cool.

  4. Return the bones to the pot.

  5. Simmer the bones for 2 hours to make stock.

  6. Strain the stock to have 1 pint.

Make the gelatine mixture

  1. Heat the stock.

  2. Clarify the heated stock with egg white.

  3. Dissolve the soaked gelatine in the hot stock.

  4. Add onion juice, kitchen bouquet, and lemon juice to the mixture.

Fill and serve

  1. Dip the cups in cold water.

  2. Place a slice of pickled beet at the bottom of each cup.

  3. Add a teaspoon of the gelatine mixture to each cup.

  4. Add a slice of hard-boiled egg yolk to each cup.

  5. Fill the cups with minced turkey, leaving ½ inch at the top.

  6. Pour in the remaining gelatine mixture to fill the cups.

  7. Set the cups on ice until ready to serve.

  8. Turn out the cups onto crisp lettuce leaves.

  9. Serve with mayonnaise dressing.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Turkey + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together464 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Provides the cooked meat and stock that form the body of the galantine.
Gelatine
Sets the stock into a firm, sliceable jelly as it chills.
Egg white
Collects particles in the stock during clarifying, leaving it clear.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the savoury jelly.

The step that matters

Clarify the stock with egg white. Egg white proteins coagulate as the stock heats and trap cloudy particles, giving a clear jelly. Overheating or stirring too hard can break up the raft and leave the aspic cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, lemon, egg, lettuce):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, lemon, egg, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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