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Game, Hashed (venison)
Cut the remains of venison into convenient-sized pieces, about half an inch in thickness. Put two ounces of butter into a saucepan, and mix with it, very smoothly, two ounces of fine flour. Let it remain on the fire till slightly browned, then add a breakfast-cupful of good stock, a tea-spoonful of essence of anchovy, a tea-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, and eight or ten oysters, with their liquor, a quarter of a tea-spoonful of cayenne, and four table-spoonfuls of milk. Let the sauce simmer till it coats the spoon. Add a glass of port wine and the slices of venison. Let the sauce simmer again till the venison is thoroughly heated; but the sauce must not boil, or the meat will be tough. Serve on a hot dish, with some toasted sippets. Time, about one hour to prepare. Probable cost, 1s., exclusive of the wine and cold meat. Sufficient, two pounds of meat and this quantity of sauce for four or five persons.
A reheating dish for leftover roast venison, built on a brown roux enriched with oysters and port. Everything hinges on keeping the sauce below a simmer once the meat goes in.
- Never let it boilAlready-cooked venison is very lean and its proteins tighten and dry out fast in boiling liquid. Bring the finished sauce to a bare quiver, slide the slices in, and hold at around 160-170F just until hot through, five to eight minutes.
- The oysters go rubberyEight or ten shucked oysters added at the start of the sauce will be tough by the time it coats the spoon. Add their liquor early for flavour and drop the oysters in with the venison so they get two or three minutes at most.
- Breakfast-cupfulA Victorian breakfast cup holds roughly 8 to 10 fl oz, so read this as about one generous cup of stock. Venison or beef stock suits it better than chicken.
- Essence of anchovyA thin, salty anchovy extract sold in bottles; anchovy paste thinned with a little water, or a scant teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, does the same job. Salt the dish only after this and the ketchup have gone in.
- Mushroom ketchupNot tomato ketchup but a dark, thin, salty mushroom liquor, still sold by a few British makers. Dark soy sauce with a drop of sherry vinegar is a reasonable stand-in.
- A glass of portIn cookery books of this period a wine glass is about 2 fl oz, though larger readings up to 4 fl oz are common; start with 2 fl oz and taste. Adding it at the end, as written, keeps the fruit bright but leaves a little raw alcohol, so give it a minute in the hot sauce.
- Roux colourEqual weights of butter and flour, two ounces each, cooked to a light brown gives a nutty flavour but less thickening power than a pale roux. Expect a sauce that just coats the spoon rather than a thick gravy.
- SippetsSmall triangles or fingers of toasted or fried bread, arranged round the edge of the dish. Fry them in butter or clarified fat if you want them to hold up under the sauce.
- YieldAs the original states, two pounds of cold meat with this quantity of sauce feeds four or five. Rice, mashed potato or buttered noodles are more use than the toast alone.
Hashes like this one were the backbone of Victorian second-day cookery, and venison in particular demanded them: reheated roast venison dries out miserably, so the answer was to cloak it in a rich sauce and warm it gently. Anchovy, mushroom ketchup, cayenne, port and oysters were all common flavourings for dark meats and brown sauces in this period, and oysters were then cheaper than they later became. Cassell's arranged its dictionary alphabetically for household reference, which is why hashed game sits among the working recipes rather than the set-piece roasts; the costing in shillings, and the careful note that it excludes the wine and the cold meat, suggests a book aimed at a cook answerable to a mistress keeping accounts.