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Beef Galantine

A rolled mixture of minced beef, ham, sausages, mushrooms, bread crumbs, and seasonings, boiled for 24 hours and glazed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Beef Galantine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pass the beef and ham through a mincing machine separately, then combine them.

  2. Mix in the skinned sausages, bread crumbs, chopped mushrooms, shallot, parsley, and plenty of salt and pepper.

  3. Bind the mixture with raw eggs and form it into a smooth roll like a sausage.

Cook and glaze

  1. Tie securely in a pudding cloth and boil gently for 24 hours.

  2. Once cold, brush the roll with a little glaze made from dissolved gelatin flavored and colored with meat extract.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture so the roll holds its shape when cooked and sliced.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the filling a tender, sliceable body.
Lean beef
Provides the main meaty structure and savory flavor of the roll.
Raw ham
Adds fat and savory flavor, keeping the minced filling moist.
Sausages
Add extra fat and seasoning, contributing richness and texture to the filling.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 24 hours. Boiling vigorously can break the roll apart and toughen the meat, while gentle simmering cooks the bound filling evenly and keeps it tender and intact.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, mushroom, bread, shallot, pepper, egg. 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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