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Galantine of Beef

A cold beef galantine made with ground beef, ham, bread crumbs, eggs, and spices, shaped into sausages, boiled, and sliced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Galantine of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the ground beef, chopped ham, bread crumbs, beaten eggs, cold water, salt, and white pepper thoroughly.

  2. Divide the mixture into two portions and shape each into a sausage.

  3. Roll each sausage in a floured cloth, tie at each end, and pin in the middle.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the sausages in boiling water and cook steadily for 2 hours.

  2. Remove from the cloth when almost cold, cut into slices, and serve cold.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Beef + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Ground beef
Forms the main body of the galantine and gives it a firm, meaty texture when cooked.
Lean raw ham
Adds savory flavor and a little extra firmness to the meat mixture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help hold the mixture together so it slices cleanly.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during cooking to hold the sausage shape.

The step that matters

Cook steadily in boiling water. The water must stay at a steady simmer or boil for the full two hours. Gentle, sustained heat sets the egg and meat proteins through the center, so the galantine cooks evenly and holds together when sliced.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, bread, egg, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, bread, egg, flour. 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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