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Venison, Jugged
Cup any part of the meat, and simmer in some stock made from venison or mutton bones. Add a turnip, a carrot, an onion stuck with a clove or two, and a few allspice berries. Let all boil up, then remove the vegetables, put the pieces of meat into a jar, strain the stock over them, and add a glass of claret or Burgundy. Set the jar in a pot of boiling water or in a gentle oven. Then take the meat out, thicken the gravy with roux, and pour it over the meat. Garnish with cut lemons. Cost, variable.
A jugged dish is meat sealed in a lidded vessel and cooked in a water bath or slow oven, so the meat stews in its own steam and a small amount of liquid. The recipe is written in the telegraphic style of a dictionary entry and assumes you know that part.
- "Cup any part of the meat"A printer's slip for cut. Cut the venison into pieces of roughly 1½ to 2 inches; shoulder, neck and shank suit this method far better than loin or haunch.
- The jarTraditionally a stoneware jug or jar with a cover tied on, stood in a pan of simmering water. A lidded cast-iron casserole or a wide-mouth canning jar loosely capped and set in a deep pan of water does the same job. The point is gentle, even, enclosed heat, not browning.
- "A gentle oven"In modern terms somewhere around 275-300F. In a water bath the contents will not exceed boiling point in any case.
- TimingNo time is given. Reckon 2½ to 3½ hours for well-worked cuts, until a piece breaks under a fork. Farmed venison is more tender and may be done in about 2 hours.
- "A glass of claret"A wineglassful in nineteenth-century cookery is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, though a drinking glass would hold more, so anywhere from 2 to 4 fl oz is defensible. Claret is the British term for red Bordeaux; any dry, moderately tannic red does the work.
- The stockVenison or mutton bones roasted first give a far better result than raw. Lamb bones are the practical modern stand-in for mutton; beef stock is acceptable but flattens the gaminess the dish is built around.
- The vegetables come outThey are aromatics only, and removing them before the meat goes into the jar presumably keeps them from collapsing over the long cooking and muddying the gravy. Discard them.
- RouxEqual weights of butter and flour cooked together until it smells nutty; about 1 oz of each will thicken a pint of gravy. Whisk the hot strained liquid into the roux off the heat, then simmer two or three minutes to lose the raw flour taste.
- YieldAbout 2 lb of trimmed venison, the sensible amount for one jar, serves four with potatoes or a starch to take the gravy.
Jugging is an English cottage and country-house technique of long standing, best known now from jugged hare, and it is often said to owe its usefulness to the fact that a sealed earthenware jar set in a copper of boiling water could be left for hours beside other work without scorching or needing attention. Venison in a Victorian household might come from an estate, a gift or a poacher, though licensed dealers also sold game and venison in markets after the Game Act of 1831. The trimmings here are the standard nineteenth-century game grammar: clove-stuck onion, allspice, and a glass of red wine to soften the meat's strong flavour, with cut lemons on the dish both as garnish and as something to squeeze over a rich, dark gravy. Well-hung deer needed that acidity more than modern farmed venison does.