Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Broiled Venison Chops
Broiled Venison Chops
Cut the chops of a moderate thickness, remove the bones and season the chops with salt and pepper, then put them into a basin, baste them with olive oil and allow them to steep in it for two days. When ready for them place the chops on a greased gridiron, and broil them over a clear fire for twenty minutes, turning them when half done. When cooked place the chops on a hot dish, brush them over with a paste brush dipped in glaze, and serve them with a dish of butter.
Broiled Venison Chops with Chestnut Puree Take half a dozen fine venison chops, pare, flatten them a trifle, and put them on a plate, with one pinch of salt, one-half pinch of pepper and one tablespoonful of oil. Roll them well in this seasoning, and put them to broil for four minutes on each side. Put one pint of hot puree of chestnuts on a dish, place the chops over, and serve with a gravy poured over all.
Two versions of the same dish sit side by side here, and they disagree sharply about time: twenty minutes in the first, eight in the second. Follow the second.
- Cook it rareVenison is very lean and turns dry and livery past medium-rare. Pull the chops at an internal 130-135F, which on a hot grill means roughly three to four minutes a side for a chop about an inch thick. The twenty-minute instruction takes the meat well past rare.
- The two-day oil steepThis is a tenderizing and moistening measure rather than a cure; the chops are seasoned with salt and pepper first, but there is no brine or acid. Keep the basin refrigerated for the whole two days, and bring the chops back to room temperature for half an hour before they go on the fire. Farmed venison, which is most of what is sold at retail, will not need the full two days.
- A clear fireCharcoal burned down past the flames, or a gas grill on high with the lid open. Oil-steeped chops drip, and a flaring fire will coat them in soot before the center is warm.
- GlazeNot sugar glaze but glace de viande: brown stock reduced until it sets to a syrup. A spoonful of good demi-glace or a heavily reduced beef or game stock, brushed on hot, does the same job.
- "A dish of butter"Probably a compound butter served alongside; maitre d'hotel butter (butter, parsley, lemon) was a standard accompaniment to broiled meats in the classic repertoire. Plain cold butter also works, melting into the glaze.
- Chestnut pureeOne pint is about two cups, enough to bed six chops. Simmer peeled chestnuts in stock or milk until soft, then pass them and loosen with cream and butter to the consistency of a thick mash. Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts save an hour of peeling.
- The gravyUnspecified, but the classic partner for game and chestnuts is a peppery reduction of stock with red wine and a spoonful of currant jelly. Any well-reduced brown sauce serves.
- YieldSix chops feed three as a main course, or six as a course in a longer menu.
Game was a mark of a serious American restaurant kitchen in the 1890s, and the Waldorf, where Oscar Tschirky was maitre d'hotel, served venison through the autumn and winter as a matter of course — much of it wild, in the years before the Lacey Act of 1900 barred the interstate transport of game taken in violation of state law. The chestnut puree is not an invention of the house but a stock French pairing for game, appearing in the classic repertoire alongside sauce Grand Veneur; chestnuts were autumnal and starchy enough to stand in for potato. The two contradictory versions printed together are typical of this book, which seems to have been assembled from working kitchen notes rather than written as a single instructional text, and it is worth noticing that the shorter, faster method is the one closer to how the dish would actually leave the range.