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Venison, Oxford John Of
Take some slices of equal size, and half an inch thick, from a well-kept leg, loin, or neck of venison. Season these rather highly with powdered spice, and fry in hot fat till they are brown on both sides. Put them in a stewpan, pour over them in equal measures enough claret and strong brown gravy to cover them, and add a table-spoonful of white wine vinegar, half a tea-spoonful of powdered sugar, and a few fried bread-crumbs. Cover the saucepan closely, and heat the sauce gently till it is close upon the point of boiling. Put the slices of venison on a dish, strain the sauce over, and serve very hot. If liked, the slices may be marinaded for an hour or two in the wine, vinegar, and spice, before being fried. Probable cost of venison, very uncertain.
A quick sauté-and-serve dish rather than a stew: the slices are cooked in the pan, and the claret sauce is only brought up to heat around them. Everything depends on not letting that sauce boil the meat a second time.
- The hinge: never boil the sauceHalf-inch venison slices will be close to cooked through by the time they are browned on both sides. The final step is warming through only — "close upon the point of boiling" — because venison is very lean and quickly goes dry and liver-ish if it is allowed to simmer.
- "Well-kept" venisonThis means hung and aged; much venison sold today has had some hanging already. Loin or leg steaks are the easiest choice, though the original also allows neck, which now tends to be sold as a slow-cooking cut.
- Powdered spiceMost likely a mixed spice of the mace, nutmeg, clove and allspice type, and pepper would not be out of place. The recipe gives no quantity; about a teaspoon for a pound of meat is a reasonable reading of "rather highly", plus salt, which the original leaves unstated.
- Claret and strong brown gravyClaret is dry red Bordeaux, and any dry, unoaked red will stand in. "Strong brown gravy" here reads as a strong, well-reduced brown meat stock rather than a floured pan gravy, since the crumbs are doing the binding; a reduced beef or game stock is the closest equivalent.
- Fried bread-crumbsThese are the only thickener in the dish: dry crumbs fried in butter until brown, stirred in, will lightly bind the sauce. The original says only "a few"; a tablespoon or two is enough, and more makes it pasty.
- Fat for fryingVenison contributes almost no fat of its own. Clarified butter, beef dripping or a neutral oil in a very hot pan gives the browning the recipe wants without stewing the slices.
- The marinade optionIf you take the alternative at the end, dry the slices thoroughly before frying or they will not brown, and reserve the marinade to make up part of the claret measure.
- Quantity and servingReckon on 5-6 oz of venison per person, with enough wine and stock to barely cover the slices in a single layer. Serve with something to catch the sauce — mashed potato, or the traditional redcurrant jelly alongside.
Oxford John is an old English dish of thin slices cut from a leg — classically mutton or lamb, browned quickly, then finished in a sharp, spiced, slightly sweet brown sauce. The name is traditional rather than documented; it is generally traced to eighteenth-century English cookery, and no reliable origin for the Oxford attachment survives. Cassell's places it here as the venison variant, and the combination it uses — claret, vinegar, a little sugar, spice and fried crumbs to bind — is often said to be a characteristic Victorian treatment for game, and is usually connected with the medieval sweet-sour spiced sauces that had long been thought necessary to lean, strong-flavoured meat. The closing note that the cost of venison is "very uncertain" is telling: a recipe like this one existed to make good use of whatever cut arrived.