Cut venison into pieces. Heat 2 tablespoonfuls of butter; add 1 onion, 1 bay-leaf, 2 sprigs of parsley, and 2 of thyme, all chopped fine. Add the venison, salt and pepper. Let all fry a few minutes; then add 1 cup of consommé and let simmer until tender. Add ½ glass of sherry and ½ can of chopped mushrooms. Let all get very hot and serve with toasted croutons.
A quick braise rather than a long stew, so the cut of venison decides whether it works. The recipe assumes tender loin or leg meat, not shank.
- Choose the cut first"Cut venison into pieces" only succeeds with loin, tenderloin or top round cut into 1-inch cubes, which need 20-30 minutes of gentle simmering. Shoulder, neck or shank will still be tough at that point and want 2 hours or more, with extra liquid.
- Half a glass of sherry"Wineglass" was an elastic measure in period cookbooks, most often reckoned at about 2 fl oz though sometimes larger, so half a glass is somewhere between 1 tablespoon and a scant 1/4 cup. The original is genuinely imprecise here; start with 2 tablespoons of a dry sherry and taste.
- ConsommeThe recipe does not say whether the consomme is homemade or canned; canned beef consomme was becoming commercially available around this date. A gelatin-rich consomme gives the sauce more body, so if using beef stock, reduce it or add a little unflavored gelatin.
- Canned mushroomsPeriod can sizes varied, so half a can is only approximate; a few ounces drained is a reasonable reading. Use 6-8 oz of fresh cremini, chopped and sauteed separately until browned, then folded in at the end; adding them raw at that stage releases water and thins the sauce.
- Do not boil after the sherry goes inThe instruction is to let it "get very hot," not to keep cooking. Lean venison seizes and dries fast above a bare simmer, and the sherry's aroma cooks off in a couple of minutes.
- HerbsTwo sprigs each of parsley and thyme chopped fine is about 2 teaspoons parsley and 1 teaspoon thyme leaves. Dried thyme at 1/2 teaspoon substitutes. Note that the recipe has the bay leaf chopped fine along with the onion and herbs; if you leave it whole instead, remove it before serving.
- CroutonsPeriod croutons for a dish like this are triangles or fingers of white bread fried in butter or toasted, not the small cubes sold today. Set them around the edge of the platter so they take up sauce without going soft in it.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity of venison; judging by the 1 cup of consomme, roughly 1 1/2 to 2 lb of meat would serve four. Venison is lean, so figure 6 oz per person.
Venison in an American cookbook of this period sat awkwardly between wild game and luxury purchase: deer were still hunted for the table across much of the country, while city cooks bought it from game dealers in season, often alongside grouse and wild duck. "A la parisienne" here seems to signal the treatment rather than any single Paris dish — in this instance a quick saute finished with consomme, sherry and mushrooms and bordered with fried bread — though the recipe itself says only "French," and how fixed such a usage was is uncertain. The canned mushrooms and canned consomme suggest a home kitchen rather than a restaurant one. A book organized as a dish a day for a year, one nation after another, was selling variety to households that cooked from a narrow repertoire, and dressing familiar game in a French name was part of the appeal.