To keep Venison.
Preserve the venison dry; wash it with milk and water very clean; dry it with clean cloths, till not the least damp remain. Then dust pounded ginger over every part, which is a good preventive against the fly. By thus managing and watching, it will hang a fortnight. When to be used, wash it with a little lukewarm water, and dry it.
Venison.
A haunch of buck will take about three hours and three quarters roasting; doe, three hours and a quarter. Put a coarse paste of brown flour and water, and a paper over that, to cover all the fat: baste it well with dripping, and keep it at a distance to get hot at the bone by degrees. When nearly done, remove the covering, and baste it with butter, and froth it up before you serve.
Gravy for it should be put into a boat, and not in the dish (unless there be none in the venison), and made thus: cut off the fat from two or three pounds of a loin of old mutton, and set it in steaks on a gridiron for a few minutes, just to brown one side: put them in a saucepan, with a quart of water: cover quite close for an hour, and gently simmer it; then uncover, and stew till the gravy be reduced to a point. Season with only salt.
Currantjelly sauce must be served in a boat.
Formerly pap sauce was eaten with venison, which, as some still like it, may be necessary to direct. Grate white bread, and boil it with port and water, a large stick of cinnamon; and when quite smooth, remove the latter, and add sugar. Claret wine may be used for it.
Make the jelly sauce thus. Beat some currantjelly, and a spoonful or two of port, then set it over the fire till melted. Where jelly runs short, put more wine, and a few lumps of sugar to the jelly, and melt as above.
To make a Pasty of Beef or Mutton, to eat as well as Venison.
Bone a small rump, or a piece of sirloin of beef, or a fat loin of mutton: the former is better than mutton, after hanging several days, if the weather permits. Beat it very well with a rolling pin, then rub ten pounds of meat with four ounces of sugar, and pour over it a glass of port wine, and the same of vinegar. Let it lie five days and nights: wash and wipe the meat very dry, and season it very high with pepper, Jamaica pepper, nutmeg, and salt. Lay in your dish, and to ten pounds put one pound or near of butter, spreading it over the meat. Put a crust round the edges, and cover with a thick one, or it will be overdone before the meat be soaked. It must be done in a slow oven.