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Roebuck, Minced
Take the remains of a dressed leg of roebuck. Remove all fat, skin, and gristle; mince the meat finely, and mix it with the remains of the poivrade sauce (see ROEBUCK, HAUNCH OF, MARINADED). If there is none left, make a little; a pint will be sufficient for a pound of mince. Heat all gently together without allowing the sauce to boil, and serve garnished with poached eggs. Time to warm the mince, a few minutes.
A leftovers dish from the game section of Cassell's, built on the assumption that you had roasted a haunch or leg of roe deer the day before and kept back its sauce. Everything hinges on gentle heat.
- Do not let it boilPoivrade is a thickened, wine-and-vinegar-sharpened brown sauce, and the mince is already cooked meat. Bringing it to a boil tightens the fibres and turns the mince grainy and dry. Keep it at a bare steam, just long enough to heat through.
- "Dressed" means cookedIn this book dressed means prepared and cooked, not seasoned or trimmed. The recipe assumes cold roast venison left from a previous meal.
- RoebuckRoe deer is not sold in most countries outside Europe. Any lean venison works — red deer, fallow, or farmed venison — as does cold roast lamb leg at a pinch, though the sauce is pitched at game.
- Poivrade sauceA peppery brown sauce built on a mirepoix sweated in fat, deglazed with vinegar and wine, moistened with stock or the marinade from the haunch, simmered down and strained, with crushed peppercorns added near the end so they do not turn bitter. A modern demi-glace sharpened with red wine vinegar and cracked pepper is a fair stand-in.
- Sauce ratioA pint to a pound of meat; note that an imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so roughly 2½ US cups of sauce to 1 lb of mince — wetter than most modern hashes, closer to a ragout. Reduce the sauce well first or the dish will be soupy.
- MincingChop by hand or pulse very briefly. A food processor run continuously will paste cooked venison, and the texture is the point.
- Reheating cooked meatBring the mixture to 165F/74C throughout, checked in the thickest part, then hold it below a simmer. Cooked meat that has been refrigerated should not be warmed to lukewarm and left there.
- Yield and servingA pound of mince with its sauce serves three or four. The poached eggs are set on top at the last moment; toast or fried bread croutons underneath keep the plate from flooding.
Cassell's belongs to a period when a large roasted joint was expected to reappear on the table two or three times, and the dictionary carries entries for those second and third appearances. Roebuck is the smallest deer native to Europe, and the entry assumes the reader also has yesterday's sauce in the larder. Poivrade is the classic French accompaniment to marinaded game, its vinegar and pepper belonging to the marinade tradition for game; by the late nineteenth century it survived as a matter of taste rather than necessity. The poached eggs are often said to be a Victorian finish for a mince, adding richness and turning a plate of leftovers into something presentable at breakfast or luncheon.