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Turkey Galantine

A stuffed turkey rolled with veal, bacon, herbs, truffles, nuts, and pickled gherkins, boiled and served cold with reduced broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and pistachio match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Turkey Galantine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turkey

  1. Bone the turkey by opening it at the back without tearing the skin and draw the tendons from the drumsticks.

  2. Pound the flesh of the drumsticks, veal, and bacon with salt, spices, and minced sweet herbs in a mortar.

  3. Spread the boned turkey on a linen cloth with the flesh side up and spread the stuffing over it to an inch thick.

Fill and roll

  1. Layer smoked tongue or ham, truffles, blanched almonds, pistachio nuts, and pickled gherkins over the stuffing.

  2. Add any remaining stuffing, roll the turkey tightly, and stitch it closed to enclose the stuffing completely.

  3. Cover the galantine with bacon, wrap it in a napkin, and tie the ends with string.

Cook and serve

  1. Bind the outside with string to maintain shape and boil in broth until cooked through.

  2. Serve cold in a deep dish with strained and reduced broth poured over it.

  3. To make jelly, boil the turkey bones and neck in a stew-pan for four hours with salt and spices, strain, reduce until it jellies, and add white wine before pouring over the galantine.

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. Almond + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Almond + nutstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together815 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Ham + truffletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Turkey
Forms the outer wrapper and the main body of the galantine once boned and rolled.
Lean veal
Adds body and a tender texture to the pounded stuffing.
Bacon
Adds fat and moisture to the stuffing and keeps the outside moist while cooking.
Truffles
Contributes a strong earthy aroma to the filling.
Blanched almonds
Add crunch and texture within the sliced filling.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the reduced jelly poured over the galantine.

The step that matters

Rolling and stitching the turkey. If the roll is loose or the stitching is weak, the stuffing can shift or escape during boiling, leaving gaps and an uneven slice when served cold.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, veal, ham, truffle, almond, pistachio, white wine):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, veal, ham, truffle, almond, pistachio, white wine. 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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