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VENISON, GRAVY FOR (another way)
Take the scrag end of a neck of mutton, half a pound of liver, the venison trimmings, and a kidney. Cut the meat into small pieces, and fry these in butter till they are slightly browned. Put them into a saucepan, pour the contents of the frying-pan over them, and add a pint and a half of water and a few peppercorns. Cover the saucepan closely, and stew its contents gently till the gravy is strong and good. Stir occasionally. Strain it into a bowl, and when cold entirely remove the fat. Before serving, boil it, season with salt, add a table-spoonful of port and a little sugar browning, and send the gravy to table in a tureen. Strong, unflavoured gravy is usually served with venison, together with venison sauce. If, however, it is preferred that the gravy should be slightly flavoured, then stew a sliced carrot, a minced shallot, a clove, and a bay-leaf with the other ingredients. When the liver and kidney cannot be procured, three or four mutton chops from the lion may be used instead. The meat may afterwards be potted or made into rissoles. Time to stew the gravy, about three hours.
A meat-only reduction: no flour, no stock cube, nothing but browned offal and bone-in mutton drawn out over three hours. The whole point is depth without seasoning, so resist the urge to add anything until the final boil.
- Scrag end, and what to buy nowThe scrag is the bony top of the neck, sold today as lamb neck bones or whole lamb neck. Mutton is scarce outside halal and specialist butchers; hogget or ordinary lamb neck works, though the flavour is milder and you may want a little extra liver to compensate.
- "Chops from the lion"A printer's slip for loin. The substitution is for the liver and kidney only, so three or four bone-in lamb loin chops replace the offal, not the neck.
- Liver and kidneyHalf a pound is about 225 g of lamb's liver; one lamb kidney, cored. Fry them only until the surfaces colour. Liver held over high heat turns grainy and pushes a chalky bitterness into the finished gravy.
- Sugar browningCaramel colouring, made by cooking sugar to a dark bitter caramel and letting it down with water. Commercial gravy browning is the direct descendant; a few drops is enough, since its job is colour rather than sweetness.
- Salt goes in last for a reasonSalt goes in last -- The recipe seasons only at the final boil, after straining and degreasing. Some water will cook away over the three hours, though the closely covered pan limits how much; whatever reduction does occur concentrates any salt already in the pot, so seasoning at the end gives more control.
- Degrease coldMutton fat sets hard and lifts off in a sheet once chilled. Skimming while hot leaves a greasy film that will separate in the tureen, so make the gravy the day before if you can.
- YieldThe pint and a half of water will give somewhat less than that once strained and degreased, though the closely covered pan limits how much cooks away. It reduces further on the final boil, so judge the strength then.
- The optional aromaticsCarrot, shallot, clove and bay go in with the meat at the start of the stew, not at the end. The book's default position, that venison takes strong unflavoured gravy plus a separate venison sauce, still holds: the sweetened accompaniment carries the flavouring.
Venison often reached a Victorian household as a gift from a shooting estate rather than a purchase, arriving as a haunch or saddle and hung for some days before cooking, though it was also sold by game dealers. Hence a gravy made largely from mutton and offal: the venison itself yields only trimmings, and mutton neck was cheap. The pairing of a plain strong meat gravy with a separate sweet sauce is common in English cookery books of the period, and the closing instruction that the boiled-out meat "may afterwards be potted or made into rissoles" is the same thrift at the other end of the process.