Skip to main content
Main

Minced Galantine

A shaped galantine of minced boiled beef, bound with eggs and bread crumbs, simmered in a cloth, pressed, and glazed with gelatine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Minced Galantine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Pass the boiled beef through a mincing machine.

  2. Mix the minced beef with bread crumbs, parsley, lemon peel, onion, salt, pepper, spice, and nutmeg.

  3. Moisten the mixture with raw eggs and shape it into an oblong on a floured board.

  4. Wrap the shaped mixture tightly in a buttered cloth, sewing it in the middle and tying each end.

Cook and press

  1. Place the wrapped galantine in a large stewpan and cover with boiling water.

  2. Add the sliced onion and blanched carrot.

  3. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  4. Remove the galantine.

  5. Press it between two flat dishes with a medium weight on top, and leave until the next day.

Glaze and serve

  1. Remove the cloth, wipe the meat, and cover it evenly with glaze.

  2. To make the glaze, soak the gelatine in cold water until softened.

  3. Add the softened gelatine to a saucepan with black jack and boiling water.

  4. Stir until the gelatine is melted but not boiling, and use while warm.

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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt boiled beef
Forms the main body of the galantine, giving it a firm, sliceable meat texture.
Raw eggs
Bind the minced meat together so it holds its oblong shape during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and soften the minced meat, keeping the filling tender.
Gelatine
Sets the glaze so it forms a glossy, firm coating over the meat.

The step that matters

Stir the glaze until melted but not boiling. Boiling gelatine weakens its setting power, so the glaze may not firm up properly on the meat. Gentle heat keeps it smooth and able to coat evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, parsley, lemon, pepper, allspice, nutmeg):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, parsley, lemon, pepper, allspice, nutmeg. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes