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Venison, Hashed
Cut any part of cold roast venison into thin neat slices the third of an inch thick. Do not remove the fat from them. Put the bones and trimmings of the venison into a saucepan with a sliced onion, a little pepper and salt, and as much stock or water as will cover them, and let them stew gently for two hours. Strain the gravy thicken with a small piece of brown thickening, or, failing this, with an ounce and a half of butter rolled in flour, and clear it from grease. Pepper and flour the pieces of venison. Put them into a clean saucepan, strain over them as much of the gravy as will moisten but not quite cover them, and heat them very gently, shaking the saucepan frequently. The gravy must not boil after the venison is put to it. Lay the meat on a hot dish, pour the gravy over, and serve very hot. A dish of plainly-boiled French beans and a little red currant jelly will be welcome accompaniments. If liked, a quarter of a pound of red currant jelly and a glassful of port, or a glassful of claret and a small piece of sugar, may be added to the gravy. When a very good gravy is required, make it as follows. Dissolve a good slice of fresh butter in a saucepan. Put with it the bones and trimmings of the venison, any mutton, beef, or poultry bones that there may be, half a pound of liver, and a kidney. Add the red part of a small carrot scraped to pulp, a minced shallot, a clove, a bay-leaf, and a little pepper and salt. Shake the saucepan over the fire till the ingredients are brown. Pour on them as much water as will cover them, and let them simmer for three hours. Strain the gravy, thicken lightly with brown thickening, clear it from fat, add a wine-glassful of port, and serve. Time, two to three hours to simmer the gravy; about an hour to simmer the venison in the sauce.
A cold-roast-venison reheat that lives or dies on temperature control. The recipe is really two recipes: a quick bone gravy and a long, richer one.
- The hinge: never let it boilOnce the venison slices are in the gravy, keep it below a simmer — roughly 160-170F, with steam but no bubbles. Boiling squeezes the juices out of already-cooked lean venison and turns the slices grey and stringy.
- Ignore the hourThe closing time note of "about an hour to simmer the venison in the sauce" is far longer than already-cooked slices need. Sliced cold roast meat is heated through in 8-12 minutes; longer only dries it.
- Brown thickeningA Victorian standby: flour cooked in butter or dripping until nut-brown, then kept in a jar. Make it fresh — equal weights butter and flour, cooked over low heat until the colour of dark honey — or use the given alternative of 1.5 oz butter rolled in flour, the quantity of flour being left to the cook.
- Slice thicknessA third of an inch is about 8 mm. Cut across the grain and keep the slices even so they warm at the same rate; the fat left on them is what keeps venison, which has very little marbling, from tasting dry.
- A glassful, a wine-glassfulA wine-glass in this period is around 2 fl oz (60 ml), not a modern 6 oz pour. Add the port or claret to the gravy while it is still hot enough to drive off the raw alcohol, before the meat goes in.
- The rich gravyHalf a pound of liver and a kidney are there for depth, not for eating — they are strained out. Lamb's kidney and lamb's or calf's liver work; brown them properly, since much of the finished colour comes from that stage, the rest from the brown thickening.
- Clearing from greaseThe gravy will throw fat — from the butter, the trimmings, and any mutton, beef or poultry bones added. Chilling the strained stock and lifting the set cap off is quicker than skimming hot, and worth doing if you make the three-hour version the day before.
- YieldUnstated, as always with a made-over dish. Reckon 4-5 oz of sliced meat per person; a pound of cold venison with the full quantity of gravy serves three to four with the beans and jelly.
This belongs to the large body of Victorian cookery devoted to using up a joint that had already been to table once, in an era when a haunch of venison was a substantial investment and refrigeration meant a cool larder. Venison in nineteenth-century Britain came largely from private parks and estates rather than butchers' shops, which is why the book assumes the cook already has bones, trimmings and a cold roast to work with rather than telling her where to buy the meat. The pairing with red currant jelly and port is older than the book, and is usually explained by the British habit of serving sharp fruit preserves with strongly flavoured game and mutton — sweetness and acid standing in for the fat wild deer does not carry — though that explanation is traditional rather than documented. The second, elaborate gravy — liver, kidney, mixed bones, browned in butter and simmered three hours — works on the same lines as a brown foundation sauce, the kind of thing a large kitchen kept in progress through the day.