Charcuterie Products

 

Charcuterie Products

Charcuterie is the culinary art of preparing meat products such as bacon, salami, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, ballotines, pâtés, and confit. Someone that prepares charcuterie is called a Charcutier.

Pâté

Pâté is a paste, pie or loaf existing of a forcemeat that at least contains liver. Common additions include ground meat from pork, poultry, fish or beef, fat, vegetables, herbs, spices and either wine or brandy (often cognac or armagnac). Pâté can be served either hot or cold, but it is considered to develop its fullest flavor after a few days of chilling.

 

 

Pâté may be baked in a crust as pie or loaf, in which case it is called pâté en croûte, or baked in a terrine (or other mold), in which case it is known as pâté en terrine. Traditionally, a forcemeat mixture cooked and served in a terrine is also called a terrine. The most famous pâté is probably pâté de foie gras, made from the livers of fattened geese. Pâté en croûte is baked with the insertion of "chimneys" on top: small tubes or funnels that allow steam to escape, thus keeping the pastry crust from turning damp or soggy.

 

Quenelle

A quenelle is a mixture of creamed fish or meat, sometimes combined with breadcrumbs, with a   light egg binding, formed into an egg-like shape, and then cooked. The usual preparation is by poaching. Formerly, quenelles were often used as a garnish in haute cuisine. Today, they are more commonly served sauced as a dish in their own right. Similar items are found in many cuisines.

By extension, a quenelle may also be another food made into a similar shape, such as ice cream, sorbet or mashed potato  quenelles.

 

Terrine

A terrine in  French cuisine is a pate made in a pottery container, also called a terrine. Terrines are usually served cold or at room temperature. Most terrines contain a large amount of fat as well as  pork, although it is often not the main ingredient; many terrines are made with typical game meat, such as pheasant and hare. 

Less commonly, a terrine may be another food cooked or served in the cooking dish called a ' 'terrine'. 

 

Confit

Confit comes from the French word confire which means literally "to preserve," a confit being any type of food that is cooked slowly over a long period of time as a method of preservation.

Confit as a cooking term describes when food is cooked in grease, oil or sugar water (syrup), at a lower temperature, as opposed to deep frying. While deep frying typically takes place at temperatures of 160–230 °C (325–450 °F), confit preparations are done at a much lower temperature, such as an oil temperature of around 90 °C (200 °F), sometimes even cooler. The term is usually used in modern cuisine to mean long slow cooking in oil or fat at low temperatures, many having no element of preservation such as dishes like confit potatoes.

In meat cooking, this requires the meat to be salted as part of the preservation process. After salting and cooking in the fat, sealed and stored in a cool, dark place, confit can last for several months or years. Confit is one of the oldest ways to preserve food, and is a specialty of south-western France.

 

Galantine

A galantine is an elaborate preparation that dates back to 17th century France. They were originally prepared by deboning a whole chicken, then combining its meat with minced veal, truffles, pork fat and other ingredients, plus a lot of seasonings, to make what's called a forcemeat, and then stuffing this forcemeat into the skin of the chicken. It was then tied up, wrapped in bacon and poached in a rich stock that would eventually jell when cooled.

The idea is very similar to the way foods were preserved in aspic or confit. 

Indeed, like the aforementioned dishes, galantines were typically served cold, accompanied by the cold gelatinized stock and garnishes such as truffles, pistachios, and bacon.

Galantines were originally made specifically from chicken. (If you speak Spanish, you know that the word gallina means hen, and the words come from the same root.) But eventually the technique would be applied to other poultry and game birds such as turkey, partridge, pheasant, pigeon and so on.

Galantines are a classic example of the traditional art of garde manger, which includes making sausages, pâtés, terrines, and many other kinds of smoked, cured, pickled or otherwise preserved foods. Indeed, once cooled, a galantine could be stored for several days in a cool room.

It's fair to say that galantines are a form of sausage. Both are basically a bunch of chopped up stuff, heavily seasoned, squeezed into some sort of wrapper and then cooked.

The same could be said about the Scottish dish haggis, for that matter. Unlike galantines, however, which are wrapped up in the skin of the chicken, haggis is prepared in a casing made from a sheep's stomach. Still just another form of sausage, though.

Ballottine

Ballottines are galantines that are served hot rather than cold. After boning out the bird and combining the meat with additional ingredients as described above to make the forcemeat, the filling is wrapped in the skin and then tied in cheesecloth and braised until cooked through.

The braising liquid is then reduced to form a glaze, which is then brushed onto the ballottine before browning it in the oven. Ballottines could be served with either a light sauce such as veloute or supreme or a dark sauce such as espagnole.

A petite ballottine is what you'd get if you decided to make a ballottine using only the leg instead of the whole chicken.

And so for one thing, it's the entire leg of the chicken—the thigh plus the drumstick. After separating the leg from the rest of the carcass, you debone it, keeping the skin intact, then remove the meat and chop it up with other stuff and then wrap it back up in the skin and cook it.

Ballottines could also be prepared from other meats, such as lamb or veal, in which case it would involve deboning the shoulder and then rolling it around a stuffing of forcemeat and then tied with string rather than wrapping it in poultry skin.

  

Roulade

A roulade is a dish of filled rolled meat or pastry. Roulade can be savory or sweet. Swiss roll is an example of a sweet roulade. Traditionally found in various Eurpean Cuisines, the term roulade originates from the French word "rouler", meaning "to roll". However, the term may be used in its generic sense to describe any filled rolled dish, such as those found in maki sushi. 

 

A meat-based roulade typically consists of a slice of steak rolled around a filling such as cheese, vegetables, or other meats. A roulade, like a braised dish, is often browned then covered with wine or stock and cooked. Such a roulade is commonly secured with a toothpick, metal skewer or a piece of string. The roulade is then sliced into rounds and served. Of this common form, there are several notable dishes:

·         Braciole, Italian roulade consisting of beef, pork or chicken usually filled with Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs and eggs

·         Paupiette French veal roulade filled with vegetables, fruits or sweetmeat. 

·          Rouladen, German and Hungarian beef roulade filled with onions, bacon and pickles. Also Kohlrouladen, cabbage filled with minced meat.

·         Španělské ptáčky (Spanish birds) are roulade in Czech Cuisine. The recipe is practically identical with German Rouladen, perhaps omitting wine and adding a wedge of hard-boiled egg and/or frankfurter to the filling. Unlike the large roulade, sliced before serving, the "birds" are typically 10 cm (3.9 in) long, served whole with a side dish of rice or Czech style bread dumplings. 

·         Szüz tekercsek ("Virgin rouladen"), in Hungary a dish filled with minced meat.

·         Zrazy (or "rolada"), in Poland.

·         Rollade, in the Netherlands. Most 'rollades' are made from rolled Pork. A typical Dutch 'rollade' is not filled. Common spices are pepper, salt and nutmeg.