While I was convincing myself I can make a galantine this year, I wanted to learn more about what kind of meats I could use for the wrapping and the stuffing. Since I was researching this question for me, I thought it would be nice to share this information with you too. So that’s what this article is for!
What meat is galantine made of?
A galantine has two meat elements: the wrapping and the stuffing. The wrapping is generally poultry skin though this wrapping can also include bacon (over the poultry skin). The stuffing can be made of poultry, pork, giblets, chorizo sausages, veal, etc. Galantine stuffing can also include veggies like spinach, pistachios and parsley, either within the forcemeat (stuffing) or as a separate layer.
Now that you know what meats you can use for a galantine, let’s explore our options for meat wrapping, meat stuffing and talk about the difference between poultry galantine and seafood galantine. But first, let’s define what a galantine is and answer the most pressing galantine question, “Oh, jeez, do I really need to debone a chicken?”
Plus, I tell you what to do next if you’re planning on making your first galantine this year. OMG!
What is a galantine?
A galantine is a French meat dish. Galantine is a flattened, deboned chicken covered with forcemeat, inlays and/or a vegetable stuffing and rolled tightly, typically into a tube shape and wrapped in cheesecloth, muslin or plastic wrap. To cook a galantine, you poach the wrapped meat tube in stock. It’s common to apply a layer or two of aspic over the chilled galantine as a decorative element. Galantines are served cold like pâtés and terrines.
Some galantines, especially in Filipino Christmas recipes, are sewn up to retain the natural chicken shape, instead of being rolled into a tube.
Must I debone a bird to make a galantine?
For you to make a galantine, somebody must debone a bird. It could be you, one of your family members or your butcher but a deboned bird is an essential part of making a galantine.
How to debone a bird yourself
Full disclosure here: As of this writing, I haven’t deboned a bird or made a galantine myself. But I recently blurted out on a YouTube video that I’m making a galantine (including deboning the chicken) this year! So, that’s within the next four months! I’m writing this to help myself prepare and I hope it helps you prepare too.
Steps for deboning your first bird
- Study – Bring your laptop or tablet to your couch and watch Jacques Pépin prepping a chicken for a galantine. Watch the video a few times to get the chicken bits sorted in your mind. (I’ll put my favourite video of Jacques deboning a chicken below, after these steps. It’s my favourite because it’s slow enough to be a good tutorial for beginners. Plus, he hardly uses his knife at all.)
- Prep the bird – Bring the bird, a sharp knife and a large cutting board to your kitchen counter.
- Prep the tutorial – Set up your laptop or tablet on the kitchen counter so you can watch the video while deboning the chicken. If you have a stylus for your tablet, use that instead of getting grease (and raw chicken germs) all over the screen. If you’re using your laptop, use a fork or pencil or whatever to tap the space bar whenever you need to pause the video (this should work on YouTube).
- Prep your psyche – Give yourself a pep talk because you can do this!
- Be epic in your own kitchen – Debone the chicken as you study the video.
If your own pep talk doesn’t do the trick, perhaps Julia Child can help. In the introduction of the book she co-created with Jacques Pépin, Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, she waxes philosophical on speed.
She says, “The professional … has to do everything as fast and as efficiently as possible yet keep up the strict standards of fine cooking. The home cook is not under those imperatives … A perfect example is the cutting up of a whole chicken. Jacques can do it in just a few seconds, literally … The whole chicken probably takes me five minutes, but I don’t have to hurry and I’m having a good time.”
Jacques Pépin’s tutorial on deboning a chicken
How to get your butcher to debone a bird for you
Well, this is the easier way. Call your butcher ahead and ask what their process is for getting this done. Then follow that process. If you go into the butcher shop during a quiet time, they might be able to do it for you right away with no advanced notice. But if you go in during their busy time and ask them to debone your chicken, you’re not going to make friends with your butcher. And of all the friends that are great to have, surely a butcher is one of them.
Galantine wrapping options: skin versus skin with chicken meat attached
I’m afraid it took me a little longer to notice these two options than it should have. As I was researching my other article, How to Make Galantine: 20 Basic Steps You Can Master!, I noticed a little detail about chicken skin in a picture I’d looked at many times before.
The skin was just skin. No meat attached. What? I was confused because of all my Jacques Pépin research.
When you watch Jacques Pépin make galantine and ballotine (a roasted version), you’ll notice that when he’s finished deboning the chicken, the meat is still attached. He then lays the stuffing on top of the meat, rolls it, wraps it and cooks it.
I believe this is the home cook version of galantine. The cheffy version—according to the two cheffy books I have—uses just the skin.
In the Garde Manger: The Art and Craft of the Cold Kitchen, Fourth Edition by The Culinary Institute of America, the first step to making galantine is, “Remove the skin from the chicken, reserving it as one whole piece.”
And in Professional Cooking, College Version, Seventh Edition, Wayne Gisslen says, “Slit the skin of the chicken along the backbone and carefully remove the skin in one piece … Lay the skin flat, inside up, and trim it into a neat rectangle. Remove all fat and connective tissue. Place a piece of cheesecloth on a sheet pan and lay the skin in the center of it.”
Since we’re home cooks, we’ll leave the meat on the skin. There’s always time later to do the skin-only version.
What meats can I use for the galantine wrapping?
Galantine is wrapped in poultry skin. This means you could make galantines with chicken, Cornish hens, duck, turkey, goose, guinea fowl, squab, pheasant, grouse and quail (if you have tiny hands, ha ha).
Basically, any poultry will work for a galantine. The bigger the bird, the more stuffing and the more time you’ll need for poaching it.
I’ve also just learned today that you can take your stuffed bird and wrap bacon over the poultry skin before wrapping it further and poaching it. Talk about taking it to the next level!
According to the Spruce Eats article, Ballottines and Galantines, “A galantine is an elaborate preparation that dates back to 17th century France.” After they describe the basic galantine preparation including putting the stuffing into the chicken skin, they finish it with, “It [the galantine] was then tied up, wrapped in bacon and poached in a rich stock that would eventually jell when cooled.”
So far in my travels, I haven’t seen any galantine recipes that call for a bacon wrap. However, I have seen a ballotine recipe that calls for a bacon wrap (as mentioned earlier, a ballotine is roasted so that would work well with a bacon wrap).
What meats can I use for the galantine stuffing?
The sky is the limit when it comes to galantine stuffing, also called forcemeat. According to the Garde Manger, forcemeat is “a mixture of chopped or ground meat or seafood and other ingredients used for pâté, sausages, and other preparations.” The other ingredients always include fat or fatty meat.
Meats (and fats) you can use in your galantine forcemeat:
- Pork, including pork butt, pork belly, bacon, ground sausage meat (chorizo is popular) and pork fat back.
- Veal (as part of a pork mix, not on its own).
- The offal bits from the bird you’re using, including liver, gizzard, heart, etc.
- Pre-cooked meats for the garnish including smoked ham, pickled beef tongue, etc.
You won’t use all of these at once, of course. Follow the galantine recipe you’re using or use your favourite forcemeat recipe. And remember, your galantine will also include the poultry meat that’s still attached to the skin.
What other ingredients go into the galantine stuffing/forcemeat?
Galantine stuffing is generally enhanced with other ingredients. These are called interior garnishes, salpicon and structured inlays.
An interior garnish is made of chunky ingredients that are mixed into the forcemeat. This can be other types of meat (like the pickled beef tongue mentioned above) or plant items like pistachios, dried fruit, herbs, etc. These garnishes provide contrast both visually and taste-wise.
Based on the salpicon ingredient list in Jane Grigson’s 1967 book, Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery, it seems that it’s the same as an interior garnish. I haven’t noticed this term (so far) in any other cookbooks so perhaps this word has simply fallen out of favour.
A structured inlay is made of large pieces of meat (or any other ingredient) and it acts like a centrepiece between layers of forcemeat.
What about seafood galantine?
So far, I’ve made this article all about birds. But seafood galantine also exists. It’s a little bit different than the traditional galantine. Seafood galantines tend to include some dairy products like cream, and they might be rolled roulade-style (like a jelly roll) instead of into a tube or chicken shape like a poultry galantine.
Seafood galantines typically have a mousseline forcemeat stuffing rather than the meaty forcemeat that goes into poultry galantines.
Mousseline forcemeat is made of puréed meat (which can be seafood or other white meats), cream and egg whites. Some seafood galantine recipes call for a secondary binder like gelatin (which helps keep the ingredients set when cooled).
Interestingly, when I searched for seafood galantine recipes online, there weren’t too many recipes to be found.
All the more reason to invest in Pâté, Confit, Rillette: Recipes from the Craft of Charcuterie, the amazing book by Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman—Seafood Galantine recipe included! [For more on why I love this book, check out my best cookbooks resource page.]
What to do next if you’re making your first galantine this year!
If you’re thinking of taking on the galantine challenge like me this year, that’s great! Before you get started, I recommend reading my article How to Make Galantine: 20 Basic Steps You Can Master! In this article, I’ve broken down this project into doable steps and explained a bit about each step along the way.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it! Now you know what meats can be used for the inside and outside of a galantine and where to get a solid tutorial on how to debone a chicken without losing your mind. I hope this helps you decide to tackle the galantine project in the near future!