I promised myself last month that I’d take on the harder challenge this month. I could have changed my mind, but that’s not usual for me. I make a plan and stick with it. So, I read and re-read the Chicken Galantine recipe in the book and forged ahead.

The recipe starts with boning out a whole chicken. I’ve done a few times before, but always

with a turkey. There’s a video online by the man I’ve probably learned the most kitchen techniques from, Jacques Pepin. I watched it a couple of times and ran it while I was actually doing it. What I so love about Jacques is how he makes everything simple, breaking it down into the essential steps. I won’t ever get to his espoused “couple of minutes” to debone a fowl, I can get it done in just a few. Well, less than ten anyway.

In Jacques video he’s going to leave the meat in place, put in a filling and cook. The book’s technique has you remove all the meat, freeze the skin and scrape away all the fat. I wasn’t particularly thorough about the scraping myself.

I did clean the meat as directed, which includes taking the tendons in the legs. Jacques always has you use a towel during this kind of operation, which works fine, but I think my solution works better. I use a pair of hemostats.

I learned in college about this handy tool. Someone had figured out that they had uses outside the biology lab. Although, at that point we didn’t use them for cooking. They clamp closed and hold on, clicking into place. They’re perfect for pulling bones out of fish or tendons out of chicken legs. With all the meat cleaned up and trimmed to size, the breasts are heavily seasoned and seared. Some of the remaining meat is ground up, using much the same technique as the mousseline. You lay down half of the mixture, top it with the breasts and roll it all up.

This the the point where things went a little bit south. The skin didn’t completely cover. So, I took out some of the forcemeat. I was using butter muslin instead of cheesecloth. It’s much the same except it has much smaller holes, like using the double layer of cheesecloth the recipe called for. It ended up being bulging and weird looking.

The crockpot was already up to the right cooking temperature filled with stock and I had set my controller to keep it at 165°F. In the galantine went. It poached for quite a while to come up to temperature. I checked it in several places and it had gone past the 160°F to 164°F.

It chilled overnight in the fridge in the liquid. I took it out, unwrapped it and immediately noticed “pinkness”. Even right under the skin.

I cut into it and right around the breast filet in the middle was a pink gelatinous ooze. I’m still baffled what this is. The breast in the middle is fully cooked, so I know it’s not blood. I’m still at a loss.

It tastes delicious, but I can say it’s not the most visually appealing dish. After the first day that pinkness turned to grey. I suppose that’s why it’s always served with a sauce. I choose my homemade plum chutney and my homemade Indian spiced tomato jam. Both were good, but the chutney went especially well with the galantine.

I’ve learned a lot this year, but something I didn’t anticipate getting into my noggin is how different people have very different tastes. Every month reading tweets and blog posts you get opinions from all over the map. Janis declared the galantine her favorite so far. Cathy raved about the hot dogs and mortadella. For me pancetta still is top of the heap. Merguez is close behind with duck proscuitto, pork pie, and mousseline rounding out my top five. But, I’m so glad to have all of the years’ challenges in my cooking arsenal.

Recipes in: Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing

By Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn.