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Venison, Shoulder of, Roast
Be careful that the shoulder of venison is not separated from the neck till the buck is cold and stiff, otherwise the appearance of both joints will be spoilt. Let the shoulder hang in a cool, airy situation as long as it can be kept untainted. Examine twice a day, and wipe away any moisture that may appear. Cover all over with thin slices of mutton fat. It is important that this should be done, because the meat has none of its own. Wrap it in greased paper, then in a stiff flour-and-water paste, and afterwards in greased paper again. Hang it before a sound, clear fire, roast, and serve like a haunch, with the same accompaniments. The flour and water paste is sometimes omitted; the slices of mutton fat should never be. Time to roast a shoulder of venison, about an hour and three-quarters. Probable cost of venison, very uncertain.
A spit-roasting recipe for a lean, hard-working joint, written for a household that hung its own deer. Two things carry it over into a modern kitchen: the fat, and the fact that a shoulder is not a haunch.
- The fat is the hingeVenison shoulder carries almost no intramuscular fat, and the original is right that the barding should never be skipped. Sheets of mutton or beef fat, or lard-soaked muslin, tied over the joint are what keep it from drying to leather; unsmoked fatty bacon or caul fat does the same job and is easier to buy.
- AgeingDo not follow the hanging instructions. Dry-ageing game in a cool larder and wiping off surface moisture twice a day assumes winter temperatures and a cook who could judge taint by smell. Buy venison already hung by a butcher or game dealer, or age it in a dedicated refrigerator at 34-38F.
- The flour-and-water pasteThis is the technique usually called huff paste or huff crust: a stiff dough of flour and water, not meant to be eaten, wrapped round the joint to shield it from radiant fire and hold in steam. The book itself does not use the term. In an oven the same effect comes from a double layer of foil, removed for the last twenty minutes.
- Oven, not fire"Hang it before a sound, clear fire" means an open spit. In an oven, roast at 350F wrapped, dropping the wrapping at the end to colour the surface. Cook to internal temperature rather than the clock: 130-135F for pink, and rest at least twenty minutes.
- The stated timeAn hour and three-quarters suits a large shoulder cooked on a spit, where much of the heat is lost to the room. In an oven that will take a modern 4-5 lb shoulder well past pink. Check from about an hour.
- Or braise itA shoulder is the animal's working limb, full of connective tissue. Many cooks now prefer it slow-braised at 300F for three to four hours until it pulls apart, which forgives the leanness the barding is fighting.
- "Serve like a haunch"The entry does not spell the accompaniments out; for roast venison they would conventionally be a gravy from the bones and a sharp jelly such as redcurrant, sometimes with port. Serve the meat and plates very hot; venison fat sets quickly and unpleasantly as it cools.
- YieldA bone-in shoulder of 4-5 lb serves six to eight.
Cassell's treats venison as a joint that arrives whole from an estate rather than from a shop, which is why the entry opens with instructions about the carcass and closes by admitting the cost is "very uncertain" -- in late Victorian Britain deer were often a landowner's meat, given as gifts, though venison also reached game dealers and markets at variable prices. The shoulder was generally regarded as the poor relation of the haunch, and the whole technique here is compensation: mutton fat for the fat the deer does not have, a huff paste for the moisture an open fire drives off. Huff crust of this kind, a flour-and-water armour discarded before serving, is much older than the book and was used for anything liable to scorch on a spit; it survives today mainly in the salt crust and the foil parcel.