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Galantine or Bassamore

A cold veal and ham galantine made with eggs, cream, breadcrumbs, spices, and lemon zest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Galantine or Bassamore

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the veal and ham very finely, removing all knots and strings from the meat.

  2. Mix in the egg yolks, egg whites, cream, breadcrumbs, pepper, salt, nutmeg, mace, and lemon zest.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie the mixture in a cloth like a roly-poly pudding.

  2. Boil for 1½ hours.

  3. Glaze 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the galantine and gives it a firm, sliceable structure when cooked.
Ham
Adds savoury flavour and salty depth that balances the mild veal.
Eggs
Bind the chopped meat together and help the galantine set firm when cooked.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and soften the texture, keeping the mixture tender rather than dense.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the meat mixture from drying out during boiling.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth tightly before boiling. A loose or uneven wrap lets the mixture spread and cook unevenly, and the egg proteins need a firm, compact shape to set into a neat slice.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, egg, cream, pepper, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, egg, cream, pepper, nutmeg, lemon. 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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