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Haricot of Roebuck
Take four pounds of the neck of a roebuck, divide it into cutlets about an inch in thickness, and fry these in hot dripping till brightly browned. Draw them from the fat, put them into a clean saucepan, and pour over them as much boiling stock or water as will cover the meat. Remove the scum carefully as it rises, and, when the gravy boils, put with it two or three carrots, turnips, and onions, all cut into small pieces, and fried for three or four minutes in the fat which was used for the meat. Simmer gently for an hour. Season with pepper and salt, and thicken the gravy with a little flour and butter. Just before serving, dissolve two table-spoonfuls of red currant jelly in the sauce, and add a quarter of a pint of port or claret. Time, two hours. Probable cost, 1s. 4d. or 1s. 6d. per pound. Sufficient for six or eight persons.
A straightforward brown stew of venison neck, finished with redcurrant jelly and wine. Two things need attention: the meat is a hard-working cut that wants far longer than the hour given, and the word haricot has nothing to do with beans.
- RoebuckRoe deer, the small native European deer. Farmed or wild venison from any species substitutes directly; neck, shoulder or shin are the right cuts. Four pounds is about 1.8 kg bone-in.
- Simmer longer than an hourNeck of venison is collagen-rich and lean, and an hour of gentle simmering leaves it fibrous. Two and a half to three hours at a bare tremble, or the same in a 300F oven with the lid on, is what actually breaks the connective tissue down. The book's own "Time, two hours" is closer to the mark than the instruction in the body.
- DrippingBeef dripping or lard. Venison carries almost no fat of its own, so a solid fat with a high smoke point matters for the browning; oil works but gives a thinner-tasting base.
- Quarter of a pintAn imperial quarter-pint is 5 fl oz, roughly 150 ml. Add it with the jelly and give it a few minutes' simmer so the raw alcohol cooks off.
- Thickening"A little flour and butter" means beurre manie: equal weights mashed to a paste, about 20 g of each for this quantity, whisked in a knob at a time and simmered two or three minutes to lose the floury taste.
- The jellyTwo tablespoons of redcurrant jelly is a seasoning, not a sweetener. Stir it in off a hard boil, taste, and correct with salt and a little vinegar or lemon if the sauce tips sugary.
- The vegetablesFrying the carrot, turnip and onion in the meat fat before they go in is worth doing properly; three or four minutes over decent heat for colour, not just heat-through. If you extend the cooking time as above, hold the root vegetables back for the final 45 minutes or they collapse.
- Cost and yield1s. 4d. to 1s. 6d. per pound is a nineteenth-century game price, of no use now beyond showing the book expected its readers to be buying venison by weight. Six to eight servings is honest for four pounds bone-in.
Haricot here is the older culinary sense of the word, generally traced to the French halicot or hericot, a dish of meat cut small and stewed, and usually connected to the verb harigoter, to cut up. The bean took the name later, and by the nineteenth century English cooks were using "haricot" for both, which is why Victorian dictionaries of cookery carry haricot of mutton, haricot of veal and this haricot of roebuck with never a pulse among them. The recipe's shape is that of the standard English game stew of the period: brown, moisten, skim, root vegetables, and a finish of port and redcurrant jelly, the sweet-sharp accompaniment that had attached itself to venison in British cooking long before Cassell's compiled this volume.