GAME
VENISON AND GROUND GAME
The stag (Fr. Cerf) and the fallow deer (Fr. Daim) supply the only venison that is consumed in England, where the roebuck (Fr. Chevreuil) is not held in very high esteem. True, the latter’s flesh is very often mediocre in quality, and saddles and legs of roebuck often have to be imported from the Continent when they are to appear on an important menu.
On the other hand, venison derived from the stag or red deer and the fallow deer proper is generally of superior quality. The former has perhaps more flavour, but the latter, which is supplied by animals bred in herds on large private estates, has no equal as far as delicacy and tenderness are concerned, while it is covered with white and scented fat, which is greatly appreciated by English connoisseurs.
Although these two kinds of venison are generally served as relevés, they belong more properly to the roasts, and I shall give their recipes a little later on. In any case, only half of the hind-quarters (that is to say, the leg together with that part of the saddle which reaches from it to the floating ribs) is served at high-class tables.
I shall now, therefore, only give the various recipes dealing with roebuck, it being understood that these, if desired, may be applied to corresponding joints of the stag or deer.
[568]
][1791—SELLE DE CHEVREUIL ET CUISSOT]
Saddles and legs of roebuck may be prepared after the same recipes, and allow of the same garnishes. The recipes for saddle which I give hereafter may therefore be applied equally well to legs.
Whichever joint be selected, it must first be cleared of all tendons and then larded with larding bacon. The last operation is no more essential than is the marinading which in France has become customary with such pieces. It might even be said with justice that marinading is not only useless, but harmful, more particularly in the case of young animals whose meat has been well hung.
Unlike many other specimens of game, roebuck has to be eaten fresh; it does not suit it to be in the least tainted. I should like to point out here that game shot in ambush is best, owing to the fact that animals killed after a chase decompose very quickly, and thereby lose a large proportion of their flavour.
The saddle of the roebuck generally consists of the whole of the latter’s back, from the withers to the tail, in which case the bones of the ribs are cut very short, that the joint may lie steady at all points.
At the croup-end, cut the joint on either side diagonally, from the point of the haunch to the root of the tail. Sometimes, however, the saddle only consists of the lumbar portion of the back, and, in this case, the ribs are cut up to be cooked as cutlets.
[1792—SELLE DE CHEVREUIL A L’ALLEMANDE]
Marinade the saddle for two or three days in raw marinade No. [169], and roast it, on a narrow baking-tray, upon the vegetables of the marinade.
As soon as the joint is cooked, withdraw it; swill the tray with a little [marinade], and almost entirely reduce. Clear of grease; add two-thirds pint of cream and one powdered juniper berry; reduce by a third; complete with a few drops of melted glaze, and rub through tammy.
Serve this sauce at the same time as the saddle, which set on a long dish.
[1793—SELLE DE CHEVREUIL A LA BADEN-BADEN]
The saddle should be [marinaded] and well dried before being set to cook.
[Poële] it on the vegetables of the [marinade].
When it is cooked, put it on a long dish, and, at either end [569] ]of it, set a garnish of stewed pears, unsugared, but flavoured with cinnamon and lemon-rind. Pour one-third pint of game stock into the tray in which the joint was cooked; cook for ten minutes; strain; clear of grease, and thicken with arrowroot.
Serve this thickened stock separately, and send some red-currant jelly to the table at the same time.
[1794—SELLE DE CHEVREUIL AUX CERISES]
Keep the saddle for twelve hours in marinade (No. [169]) made from verjuice instead of vinegar. Roast it on the spit, basting it with the marinade, and keep it slightly underdone.
At the same time, serve a cherry sauce consisting of equal quantities of poivrade sauce and red-currant jelly, to each pint of which add three oz. of semi-candied cherries, set to soak in hot water thirty minutes beforehand.
N.B.—This saddle need not be marinaded if it be desired plain.
[1795—SELLE DE CHEVREUIL A LA CUMBERLAND]
Roast it like a haunch of venison, without marinading it. Send it to the table with a timbale of French beans, cohered with butter, and serve a Cumberland sauce (No. [134]) separately.
[1796—SELLE DE CHEVREUIL A LA CRÉOLE]
[Marinade] it for a few hours only, and roast it on the spit, basting it the while with the [marinade].
Set it on a long dish, and surround it with bananas tossed in butter.
At the same time serve a Roberts sauce, combined with a third of its bulk of Poivrade sauce, and one oz. of fresh butter per pint.
[1797—SELLE DE CHEVREUIL A LA BEAUJEU]
Lard and roast it. Set it on a long dish, and surround it with artichoke-bottoms, garnished with lentil purée, and alternated with chestnuts cooked in a small quantity of consommé and glazed.
Serve a venison sauce separately.
[1798—SELLE DE CHEVREUIL AU GENIÈVRE]
Lard the saddle, and roast it. Swill the baking-tray with a small glassful of burned gin; add one powdered juniper berry and one-sixth pint of double cream. Reduce the cream to half; complete with a few tablespoonfuls of poivrade sauce and a few drops of lemon juice. Serve this sauce with the saddle, and send separately some hot stewed apples, very slightly sugared.
[570]
][1799—SELLE DE CHEVREUIL AVEC SAUCES DIVERSES]
Saddle of roebuck may also be served with the following sauces:—Poivrade, Venison, Grand-Veneur, Moscovite, Roberts, &c. The selected accompaniment determines the title of the dish.
[1800—NOISETTES ET CÔTELETTES DE CHEVREUIL]
The same recipes may be applied to both. Trim them after the manner of lamb noisettes or cutlets. They may be moderately [marinaded], but they may also be used fresh. In the latter case, fry them in butter over a somewhat fierce fire, like the lamb noisettes.
If they have been [marinaded], it is better to toss them very quickly in very hot oil, and then to dry them before dishing them.
It is in the dishing only that the noisettes and the cutlets differ; for, whereas the latter are always dished in a crown, one overlapping the other, or each separated from the rest by [croûtons] of bread-crumb fried in butter, the noisettes are always dished in a circle on small, oval [croûtons] fried in butter, or on tartlet crusts containing some kind of garnish.
[1801—CÔTELETTES DE CHEVREUIL CONTI]
[Sauté] the cutlets in very hot oil; dry them; dish them in a crown, and separate them by similarly-shaped collops of salted tongue.
Swill the saucepan with a little white wine; add this liquor to a Poivrade sauce, and coat the cutlets with it.
Serve a light, buttered purée of lentils at the same time.
[1802—CÔTELETTES DE CHEVREUIL DIANE]
Spread an even layer, one-third inch thick, of [mousseline] game forcemeat on a tray. Poach this forcemeat in a steamer or in a very moderate oven, and cut it into triangles equal in size to the cutlets.
Toss the latter as already explained; dish them in a crown, and separate them by [croûtons] of forcemeat already prepared.
Coat the whole with poivrade sauce, thinned by means of a little beaten cream, and garnished with crescents of truffle and hard-boiled white of egg, and serve a purée of chestnuts at the same time.
[1803—NOISETTES DE CHEVREUIL AU GENIÈVRE]
Cook the noisettes in smoking oil. Dry them, dish them, [571] ]and coat them with the same sauce as that given under “Selle au Genièvre” (No. [1798]).
Serve some stewed apples at the same time.
[1804—NOISETTES DE CHEVREUIL ROMANOFF]
Cook the noisettes; set them on stuffed sections of cucumber, prepared after No. [2124a], and place a slice of truffle on each noisette. Coat with a Poivrade sauce with cream, and serve a mushroom purée separately.
[1805—NOISETTES DE CHEVREUIL VALENCIA]
Cook the noisettes, and dish them in a circle, each on a round [croûton] of brioche fried in butter, and coat lightly with bigarrade sauce.
Serve a sauceboat of bigarrade sauce and an orange salad at the same time.
[1806—NOISETTES DE CHEVREUIL VILLENEUVE]
Carefully clear the meat of the roebuck of all tendons, and chop it up with a knife, combining with it the while the third of its weight of fresh butter, as much bread-crumb, soaked in milk, and pressed, and one-third pint of fresh cream per lb. of meat. Season, divide into portions weighing two oz., mould to a nice round shape, wrap in pig’s caul, cook quickly at the last moment, and dish in the form of a crown.
Coat with Chasseur sauce, and send a timbale of celery purée separately.
[1807—NOISETTES DE CHEVREUIL WALKYRIE]
[Sauté] the noisettes in the usual way, and dish them in the form of a crown, each on a small quoit of “Pommes Berny” (No. [2184]). On each noisette lay a fine, grilled mushroom, garnished with a rosette of Soubise purée, made by means of a piping-bag fitted with a grooved pipe. Pour a little venison sauce over the dish, and send a sauceboat of it separately.
N.B.—Roebuck noisettes and cutlets are still served with purées of chestnuts or celery, with truffles, [cèpes], mushrooms, &c.
The sauces best suited to them are Poivrade sauce and its derivatives, such as Venison sauce, Grand-Veneur sauce, Romaine sauce, &c., also Roberts sauce Escoffier.
[1808—CIVET DE CHEVREUIL]
For “Civet de Chevreuil” the shoulders, the neck, and the breast are used, and these pieces are cut up and set to [marinade] six hours beforehand with the aromatics and the same red wine as that with which the civet will be moistened.
[572]
]When about to prepare the civet, drain and dry these pieces, and proceed exactly as for “Civet de Lièvre” (No. [1821]), except for the thickening by means of blood, which the difficulty of obtaining the blood of the roebuck perforce precludes.
This civet, which should be classed among dishes for the home, is usually served in the form of a stew; for, inasmuch as the final thickening with blood is lacking, it can only be an imitation of the civet. When, therefore, hare’s blood is available, it should always be used in finishing this dish exactly after the manner of No. [1821]—that is to say, the preparation should be given the characteristic stamp of civet by means of a final thickening with blood.
[1809—BOAR AND YOUNG BOAR (SANGLIER ET MARCASSIN)]
When the wild boar is over two years of age, it is no more fit to be served as food. Between one and two years it should be used with caution, and the various roebuck recipes may then be applied to it. But only the young boar less than twelve months old should be prepared in decent kitchens.
The hams of a young boar, salted and smoked, supply a very passable relevé, which allows of varying the ordinary menu. They are treated exactly like pork hams.
The saddle and the cushions may be prepared after the recipes given for saddle of roebuck, and the same holds good with the cutlets and the noisettes.
Finally, the saddle may be served cold, in a daube, when it is prepared after No. [1173].
As the various parts of the young boar are covered with fat, it is understood that they are not larded, nor do they need it.
[1810—HARE AND LEVERET (LIÈVRE ET LEVRAUT)]
As a result of one of those freaks of taste, of which I have already pointed out some few examples, hare is not nearly so highly esteemed as it deserves in England; and the fact seems all the more strange when one remembers that in many of her counties excellent specimens of the species are to be found.
Whatever be the purpose for which it is required, always select a young hare, five or six lbs. in weight. The age may be ascertained as follows:—Grasp one ear close to its extremity with both hands, and pull in opposite directions; if the ear tear, the beast is young; if it resist the strain, the hare is old, and should be set aside for soups and the preparation of [fumets] and forcemeats.
[573]
][1811—LIÈVRE FARCI A LA PERIGOURDINE]
Take care to collect all the blood when emptying the hare; break the bones of the legs, that they may be easily trussed; clear the legs and the fillets of all tendons, and lard them. Chop up the liver, the lungs, the heart, and four fowls’ livers, together with five oz. of fat bacon.
Add to this mincemeat five oz. of soaked and pressed bread-crumbs, the blood, two oz. of chopped onion, cooked in butter and cold; a pinch of chopped parsley, a piece of crushed garlic the size of a pea, and three oz. of raw truffle parings. Mix the whole up well; fill the hare with this stuffing; sew up the skin of the belly; truss the animal, and braise it in white wine for about two and one-half hours, basting it often the while. Glaze at the last moment. Serve the hare on a long dish.
Add two-thirds pint of half-glaze game sauce to the braising-liquor; reduce; clear of grease; strain, and add three oz. of chopped truffles to this sauce.
Pour a little sauce over the dish on which the hare has been set, and serve what remains of the sauce separately.
[1812—RÂBLE DE LIÈVRE]
The French term “râble” means the whole of the back of the hare, from the root of the neck to the tail, with the ribs cut very short.
Often, however, that piece which corresponds with the saddle in butchers’ meat alone is taken, i.e., the piece reaching from the croup to the floating ribs. Whatever be the particular cut, the piece should be well cleared of all tendons, and finely larded before being set to [marinade]; and this last operation may even be dispensed with when the “[râble]” is derived from a young hare.
Marinading would only become necessary if the piece had to be kept some considerable time.
[1813—RÂBLE DE LIÈVRE A L’ALLEMANDE]
Set the [râble] well dried on the vegetables of the [marinade], which should be laid on the bottom of a long, narrow dish. When it is nearly cooked, remove the vegetables, pour one-quarter pint of cream into the dish, and complete the cooking of the [râble], basting it the while with that cream.
Finish at the last minute with a few drops of lemon juice.
Dish the [râble], and surround it with the cream stock, strained through a fine strainer.
[574]
][1814—RÂBLE DE LIÈVRE AU GENIÈVRE]
Roast it, as above, on the vegetables of the [marinade].
Swill the dish with a small glassful of gin and two or three tablespoonfuls of [marinade], and reduce to half. Add one-sixth pint of cream, two tablespoonfuls of poivrade sauce, and four powdered juniper berries.
Strain and serve this sauce separately at the same time as the [râble].
[1815—CUISSES DE LIÈVRE]
Use the legs of young hares only; those of old animals may be used for the “civet” and forcemeat alone. After having cleared them of tendons and larded them with very thin strips of bacon, treat them like the [râble].
[1816—FILETS DE LEVRAUT A LA DAMPIERRE]
Take five leverets’ fillets; [contise] them with slices of truffle, after the manner directed for “Suprêmes de Volaille à la Chevalière” (No. [1458]); shape them like crescents, and set them on a buttered dish.
Lard the minion fillets with a rosette consisting of strips of salted tongue, and set them also on a buttered dish.
With what remains of the meat of the leverets, prepare a [mousseline] forcemeat, and add thereto some truffle essence and some chopped truffles.
Dish this forcemeat, shaping it like a truncated cone two and one-half inches high, the radius of which should be the length of a leveret’s fillet.
Set this forcemeat to poach in the front of the oven.
Sprinkle the fillets and the minion fillets with a little brandy and melted butter; cover them, and poach them likewise in the front of the oven. This done, arrange them radially on the cone of forcemeat, alternating the fillets and the minion fillets. Place a fine, glazed truffle in the middle of the rosette, and surround the base with mushrooms, separated by chestnuts cooked in consommé and glazed, and small onions cooked in butter.
Serve a poivrade sauce at the same time, combined with the fillets’ cooking-liquor.
[1817—FILETS DE LEVRAUT A LA MORNAY]
(Recipe of the Frères Provençaux)
Trim two leverets’ fillets, and cut them into collops, one inch in diameter and one-third inch thick. Prepare (1) the [575] ]same number of bread-crumb [croûtons] as there are collops, and make them of the same size as the latter, though half as thick; (2) the same number of thick slices of truffle, cooked at the last minute in a little Madeira.
Toss the collops of fillet quickly in clarified butter; colour the [croûtons] in butter at the same time, and mix the latter with the collops and the truffles in a saucepan.
Swill the sautépan with the Madeira in which the truffles have cooked; add a little succulent pale glaze; reduce sufficiently; strain the sauce through a sieve; finish it liberally with butter; add it to the [sautéd] collops, and serve the latter in a very hot timbale.
N.B.—This recipe was given by the Comte de Mornay himself to the proprietors of the famous Parisian restaurant, and for a long while the dish was one of the specialities of a house no longer extant.
[1818—FILETS DE LEVRAUT A LA VENDOME]
After having [contised] the leveret’s fillets, roll them round a buttered tin mould, and fasten them with a string, that they may form rings.
Set to poach. Meanwhile, spread on a buttered tray a layer one-half inch thick of game forcemeat; poach the latter; stamp it out by means of an even cutter into roundels of the same size as the rings, and set one of these on each of the forcemeat roundels, fixing it by means of a little raw forcemeat.
Cut the minion fillets into collops, and quickly toss them in butter with an equal quantity of mushrooms and five oz. of raw, sliced truffles.
Swill the saucepan with a little brandy and the poaching-liquor of the fillet-rings; add a little poivrade sauce; finish this sauce with butter, and plunge therein the collops of fillet, the mushrooms, and the truffles.
Set the rings in a circle on a dish, and fill them with this garnish. Serve separately a sauceboat of poivrade sauce and a timbale of chestnut purée.
[1819—MOUSSES ET MOUSSELINES DE LIÈVRE]
Proceed exactly as for all other [mousses] and [mousselines], except, of course, in regard to the basic ingredient, which in this case is the meat of a hare.
[1820—SOUFFLÉ[!-- TN: acute invisible --] DE LIÈVRE]
With one lb. of the meat of a hare, prepare a light [mousseline] forcemeat; add thereto the whites of two eggs, [576] ]whisked to a stiff froth; poach the [mousseline] in a soufflé saucepan.
Cut the hare’s minion fillets into collops, and toss them in butter at the last moment.
Cook the [soufflé] in a moderate oven; coat the top lightly with half-glaze sauce flavoured with hare [fumet], and surround it with the minion-fillet collops, alternated with slices of truffles.
The minion-fillet collops and the slices of truffles may be added to the sauce, and this garnish is served separately in another timbale.
[1821—CIVET DE LIÈVRE]
Skin and clean the hare, taking care to collect all the blood in so doing. Put the liver aside, after having carefully freed it from the gall-bladder, as also from those portions touching the latter.
Cut up the hare, and put the pieces in a basin with a few tablespoonfuls of brandy and an equal quantity of olive oil, salt, pepper, and an onion cut into thin roundels. Cover and leave to [marinade] for a few hours in the very red wine used for the moistening. Fry one-half lb. of lean bacon, cut into large dice, in butter, and drain it as soon as it is brown. In the same butter brown two fair-sized, quartered onions; add two tablespoonfuls of flour, and cook this roux gently until it acquires a golden tinge. Put the pieces of hare into this roux, after having well dried them, and stiffen them.
Moisten with the wine used for the [marinade]. Add a large faggot, in which place a garlic clove; cover, and leave to cook gently on the side of the stove.
A few minutes before serving, thicken the civet with the reserved blood, which should be gradually heated, and mix therewith a few tablespoonfuls of sauce. Then transfer the pieces of hare, one by one, to another saucepan with the fried pieces of bacon, twenty small, glazed onions, and twenty cooked mushrooms.
Strain the sauce over the whole through a strainer.
Dish in a warm timbale, and surround with heart-shaped [croûtons] fried in butter at the last moment.