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Jugged Venison with Poivrade Sauce
Take two and one-half pounds of venison, the lower part if possible, as the lean parts are preferable, and cut it into small square pieces; place these in an earthenware jar with one sliced onion, one-half bunch of parsley roots, a sprig of thyme, two or three bay leaves, a dozen whole peppers, two pinches of salt, one-half pinch of pepper, and one-half wineglassful of vinegar. Allow them to marinade for twelve hours. Drain off the juice, put the venison into a sautepan with one ounce of clarified butter, and cook for ten minutes; then add three tablespoonfuls of flour, stirring it well while adding. Moisten with one and one-half pints of broth, also the marinade liquor well strained. Season with one pinch of salt, and half a pinch of pepper, and cook for forty minutes longer. Arrange the civet on a hot dish, sprinkle over a little chopped parsley, and serve.
A game stew of the plainest kind: an overnight marinade, a flour-thickened braise, and no more. The only real decisions are the cut of venison and how long it actually needs on the heat.
- Where is the poivrade sauce?The title promises one, but the method never makes it: the vinegar marinade, peppercorns and roux-thickened stock are doing the work of a poivrade in the pot. If you want the sauce proper, make it separately and serve alongside rather than looking for it in these instructions.
- Jugged, and civet"Jugged" refers to the earthenware jar, which here is only a marinating vessel — use any nonreactive bowl, glass or stainless, and marinate in the refrigerator rather than twelve hours on a counter. "Civet" is the French term for a game stew of this type, traditionally finished with blood; Oscar drops that step entirely.
- A wineglassfulIn books of this period a wineglass is about 2 fl oz, so half a glass is roughly 2 tablespoons of vinegar. That is a light hand for 2 1/2 lb of meat; red wine vinegar is the appropriate choice.
- PinchesOscar's "pinch" is not a standardized measure. Read it as a generous 1/4 teaspoon of salt and season again at the end by taste.
- Parsley rootsHamburg-rooted parsley, sold at farmers' markets and Eastern European grocers. A small parsnip plus a handful of parsley stems is the nearest substitute. "A dozen whole peppers" means whole black peppercorns.
- The cooking time is shortTen minutes of browning plus forty in liquid will only work for small cubes of tender loin or haunch. Tougher wild venison from the shoulder, neck or shank needs a covered pot at a bare simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours before it gives way. What Oscar means by "the lower part" is unclear; he asks only that the meat be lean.
- The rouxAfter adding the flour, let it cook two or three minutes in the butter and meat fat before any liquid goes in, or the sauce tastes pasty. Add the stock gradually and stir out lumps while it is still thick.
- BrothA pint and a half of brown veal or game stock. Commercial beef broth is usually saltier than what Oscar's kitchen ladled from the stockpot, so hold back salt until the sauce has reduced.
- YieldServes four generously with noodles, spaetzle or potatoes, and traditionally a spoonful of tart jelly on the plate.
Oscar Tschirky presided over the Waldorf's dining room, and game there was handled as a matter of course: venison, grouse and wild duck were still standard restaurant fare in New York around 1900, much of it shipped in from commercial hunters before market hunting was curtailed by the Lacey Act of 1900 and the state game laws that followed. The dish itself is French in bones — a civet de chevreuil, the marinade-and-roux treatment given to lean, strong-tasting meat that has no fat of its own to keep it sweet. The English word "jugged" attaches to hare more often than deer and is usually said to have described cooking sealed in an earthenware jug set in water, though by Oscar's day it seems to have loosened into a general term for a dark, well-seasoned game stew. What survives here of the older tradition is the long acidulated soak, which was as much about keeping and taming hung meat as about flavor; what has quietly dropped away is the thickening with blood that gives a true civet its color.