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Galantine d'Anguille

A stuffed eel dish with forcemeat, truffle, pistachios, cooked tongue, and whiting, wrapped in bacon and stewed in Madeira wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Truffle and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Galantine d'Anguille

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eels

  1. Skin and bone the eels.

  2. Spread forcemeat down the center of each eel.

  3. Layer small fillets of truffle, pistachios, cooked tongue, and whiting on top.

  4. Cover with more forcemeat.

  5. Sew the eel back into its original shape.

  6. Cut each eel into two equal parts.

  7. Wrap each part in thin slices of bacon.

  8. Tie the wrapped eel in a napkin.

Poach and cool

  1. Place the wrapped eel in a stewpan with a marinade made from Madeira wine.

  2. Stew gently for 30 minutes or until tender.

  3. Let the eel cool in the stock.

  4. Remove the eel from the napkin.

Glaze and serve

  1. Glaze the eel.

  2. Place the glazed eel on a dish side by side on a stand of Montpellier butter.

  3. Garnish with crawfish and croutons of aspic.

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. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Truffle + fishtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together137 recipes

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

  4. Truffle + madeira winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together195 recipes
  5. Whiting + fishtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eels
Provide the main body of the galantine, holding the filling together as it cooks.
Forcemeat of whiting
Adds a soft, moist, binding filling that sets firm as it cooks.
Whiting
Contributes delicate fish texture and flavour to the filling.
Thin slices of fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour while keeping the eel moist during stewing.
Madeira wine
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the braising liquid.
Montpellier butter
Adds richness and fat to the serving base, supporting the eel's flavour.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 30 minutes or until tender. Gentle heat keeps the delicate eel and forcemeat from breaking apart or toughening. Boiling would cause the proteins to tighten and the fish to crumble, so the wrapped eel should poach at a low simmer until just tender.

Swap the pistachio

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, truffle, madeira wine, butter, fish):

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Pistachiothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, truffle, madeira wine, butter, fish. 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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