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Sucking Pig, Galantine of

A galantine of a young suckling pig, forcemeat, truffles, pink ham, and tongue, simmered in veal broth and served with aspic jelly, salad, and lemons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

Sucking Pig, Galantine of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Bone the young pig or have the butcher do it.

  2. Lay the pig flat on a table, back down, and spread alternate layers of forcemeat, truffles, pink ham, and tongue. Season each layer with pepper and coarse sea salt, then roll the pig tightly and bind it with tape.

  3. Attach a few slices of fat bacon to the outside for added succulence.

Cook and set

  1. Wrap the pig in a pudding cloth and simmer gently in veal broth with the pig's bones, carrot, mace, peppercorns, and sweet herbs.

  2. Once cooked, let it cool in its broth, then press it under a weight and serve cold.

Serve

  1. Garnish with aspic jelly, salad, and lemons.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

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

  4. Truffle + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together815 recipes

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

  5. Truffle + hamtop 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

Young pig
Forms the whole body of the galantine and gives the meat that encloses the filling.
Forcemeat
Binds the layers together and gives a soft, smooth texture around the filling.
Truffles
Adds a strong earthy aroma that flavours the filling throughout the roll.
Pink ham
Adds savoury flavour and a contrasting colour to each slice.
Tongue
Adds rich, tender meat to the layered filling.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the lean pig moist during the long cooking.

The step that matters

Simmering in the pudding cloth. The broth should stay at a gentle simmer, not a rolling boil. Vigorous boiling can toughen the meat and break up the layers, while gentle heat cooks the roll evenly and keeps it moist.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, ham, pepper, veal, carrot, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, ham, pepper, veal, carrot, 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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