Assembling a Ballotine of Duck

I find preparing ballotines to be one of the more challenging garde manger techniques. It requires mastery in fabrication, forcemeats, seasoning, garnishing and stock preparation (if poaching a galantine) as well as sanitation. Cold, Cold, Cold!

In a recent post I showed a delicious, chicken galantine I poached in a water bath. The chicken breast meat was laid out as a whole muscle on the skin. In this post the duck breast has been flattened and seasoned to wrap around the forcemeat and then wrapped in the duck skin.

I’ve seen chefs wrap the ballotine in foil and bake it… it doesn’t really come out evenly browned and the skin seems kind of soggy. I’ve also seen chefs attempt to roast or fry but that seems really messy. These all seem like ‘cobbler style cooking’ to me.

My technique is to poach the ballotine, cool and let rest. Then I tie and roast until nicely browned. This may be a little ‘cobbler style’ also, not sure but it works great!

I love serving warm slices of duck ballotine with braised cabbage or over cassoulet beans cooked in the duck stock made from the carcass.

Mastering these forcemeat techniques is very challenging and takes years of practice, and it is a lot of fun. There are several disappointing videos of chefs attempting to make galantines and ballotines on social media. Their technique is weak and organization is lacking. I’d highly recommend watching an expert such as Jacques Pepin make a galatine. It is like watching a master artist paint... I’ll be attempting to make his country style chicken galantine this weekend-it’s inspiring to watch him cook.

I love this dried, fruit blend called ‘CA Bakers Fruit Medley. I macerate the fruit in brandy for about 2 hours before adding to the duck and pork forcemeat. To assemble, I use a disposable pastry bag and pipe out a large log. I wrap and freeze for about an hour so it’s easier to wrap. During that time I pound out the duck breasts and season liberally. I wrap the unwrapped forcemeat in the duck breast and overlap so it’s fully wrapped around the forcemeat. I lay out the duck skin and place the ‘breast wrapped’ forcemeat into the center of the duck skin and wrap the skin around evenly with at least an inch overlap. The duck skin shrinks! I finally wrap the final product in plastic or cheesecloth and poach until cooked.

I cool for a full day, unwrap and wipe off all of the gelatine and moisture, then tie and brown on a rack in the oven.