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Venison, Marinaded and Baked
Take a shoulder of venison, bone and flatten it, lay it in a deep dish with a pint of vinegar, half a pint of oil, a sliced onion, a bunch of sweet herbs, the grated rind of a Seville orange, a pinch of grated nutmeg, and a little pepper, salt, and powdered sugar. A glassful of white wine may be added or not. Let it remain in this marinade for forty-eight hours, and turn it about three or four times. Take it up, cover with greased paper, and bake in a moderately-heated oven until done enough. Serve with venison sauce. Time to bake the venison, one and three-quarters to two hours, according to size. Probable cost of venison, very uncertain.
VENISON, MOCK; OR MUTTON DRESSED TO TASTE LIKE VENISON, STEWED. Take a loin of mutton, or even a neck of mutton, cut long in the bones, and hang it in a cool, airy situation for several days. Skin and bone it, lay it in a stewpan, pour over it a pint of stock or water, and add a large onion stuck with ten or twelve cloves, eight peppercorns, a table-spoonful of vinegar, and three glassfuls of port. Let it boil, skim it, put with it a small bunch of sweet herbs and a little salt, and let it simmer very gently till tender. Turn it over two or three times that it may be equally cooked. Serve with strong gravy made from the bones, and with red currant jelly. The gravy may be made as follows. Put the trimmings and bone of the mutton into a stewpan with a slice of butter. Shake them over the fire till lightly browned. Pour upon them as much stock as will cover them, and let them simmer gently for an hour and a half. Strain the liquor, let it cool, free it from fat, and season with salt only, that its flavour may not overpower that of the meat. Boil it up, and serve very hot. If not sufficiently coloured, a very small quantity of sugar browning may be added. Time to stew the mutton, about three hours. Probable cost, 1s. per pound. Sufficient for six or seven persons. (See also MUTTON, COOKED LIKE VENISON.)
Two recipes run together here: a boned shoulder of venison given a long acid marinade, and "mock venison" made by stewing mutton with port and cloves. Both assume a cool larder and a cook who judges doneness by eye.
- Marinate cold, not in the larderForty-eight hours in vinegar and oil was safe in an unheated stone larder; in a modern kitchen it is not. Marinate in the refrigerator in a covered non-reactive dish or a zip bag, turning three or four times as directed.
- "Moderately-heated oven"Read that as 350F. The greased paper is a doneness-and-moisture device, not decoration — venison shoulder has almost no fat and will dry out uncovered.
- The hinge: shoulder wants long and low, not roasted pinkA boned, flattened shoulder is connective-tissue meat. Either take it to 130–135F internal and slice thin, or ignore the stated 1¾–2 hours and braise it covered at 300F for 3 hours or more until it pulls apart. The original timing lands in the tough middle ground.
- Seville orangeA bitter marmalade orange, in season only in winter. Use the grated rind of one regular orange plus a little lemon zest, or the zest of a bergamot if you have one.
- "Sweet herbs"A bundle of thyme, parsley stalks and bay, sometimes with marjoram or savoury. Tie it so it can be fished out.
- Venison sauceIn Cassell's and books like it this is usually a sharp sweet-sour sauce: port or claret reduced with redcurrant jelly, a strip of orange or lemon peel and a little stock. The mutton version's redcurrant jelly works on the same principle.
- Hanging the mutton"Several days in a cool, airy situation" is dry-ageing, which is what gave mutton its gamey edge. Butcher-aged lamb or mutton shoulder, used straight away, is the practical substitute; do not hang meat at room temperature.
- Sugar browningCaramelised sugar used as a colouring, the ancestor of bottled gravy browning. A teaspoon of dark caramel or a few drops of browning does the same job.
- YieldThe recipe gives no weight or number of servings for the venison, and calls its cost "very uncertain"; judge by size, as the timing instruction says. The mutton recipe does state six or seven persons, and its cost -- 1s. a pound -- dates the entry rather than helps you shop.
Cassell's places these two entries side by side, and the contrast is telling: the venison recipe itself admits a cost that is "very uncertain", much of the supply coming off private estates, while mutton was everywhere and priced at 1s. a pound. The long vinegar-and-oil marinade in the first recipe belongs to an older European way of handling wild meat, where acid was relied on to soften and to temper strong flavour in a carcase of unknown age. The second recipe works the trick in reverse: hanging, cloves, port and redcurrant jelly were the accepted signals for "venison", and mutton dressed to eat like venison appears in English cookery books from the eighteenth century onward, alongside such dishes as mock turtle. These dishes speak as much of aspiration as of scarcity -- the flavours of the game table could be reproduced when the game could not.