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Roast Haunch of Venison
Wash in warm water and dry well with a cloth, butter a sheet of white paper and put over the fat, lay in a deep baking-dish with a very little boiling water, cover with a close-fitting lid or with a coarse paste one-half inch thick. If the latter is used, a thickness or two of coarse paper should be laid over the paste. Cook in a moderately hot oven for from three to four hours, according to the size of the haunch, and about twenty minutes before it is done quicken the fire, remove the paste and paper or dish-cover, dredge the joint with flour and baste well with butter until it is nicely frothed and of a delicate brown color; garnish the knuckle -bone with a frill of white paper, and serve with a gravy made from its own dripping, having first removed the fat. Have the dishes on which the venison is served and the plates very hot. Always serve with currant jelly.
A period method for a whole hind leg, using a flour-and-water crust as a disposable lid. The technique is sound; the timing belongs to an era of larger, fattier, longer-hung deer.
- What a haunch isThe whole hind leg, bone in, typically 8-12 lb for farmed venison and often more for wild deer. Butchers will usually sell it as a leg; ask for the shank left on if you want the knuckle-bone the recipe garnishes.
- "Coarse paste"A stiff paste of flour and water, sometimes with a little suet, rolled half an inch thick and laid over the joint as a sealed cover. It is not eaten and is not pastry in the eating sense; it is a sacrificial lid. Heavy foil under a tight-fitting lid does the same job.
- Moderately hot ovenNo figure is given; read it as somewhere in the moderate-to-hot range, around 350-375F. The final "quicken the fire" stage means a sharp increase in heat, or moving the joint to the top of a hot oven, for the browning. Any number here is a modern approximation.
- Three to four hours is too longModern venison, farmed or wild, is far leaner than the deer this book knew and turns dry and grey well before three hours. Roast to internal temperature instead: 130-135F at the thickest part of the leg for pink, rising a few degrees as it rests. A 10 lb haunch will likely need well under the stated three to four hours, but go by a thermometer rather than the clock.
- RestingThe original says nothing about it. Rest a modern haunch 20-30 minutes under loose foil before carving; the leg is large and the juices need to settle.
- FrothingDredging with flour and basting with butter under high heat is what produces the blistered, freckled brown surface the period called "frothed." It needs real heat and repeated basting over the final stretch, which the recipe puts at about twenty minutes, not a gentle finish.
- The gravyVery little fat renders from lean venison, so there may be less dripping than expected. Deglaze the pan with stock or red wine and reduce; the instruction to skim the fat still applies to farmed animals.
- Hot plates, and the jellyNot a flourish. Venison fat sets hard and unpleasantly on a cool plate, which is why the book names both the serving dish and the plates. Red currant jelly remains the standard accompaniment; a tart plum or rowan jelly works the same way.
- YieldA 10 lb bone-in haunch serves 10-14 as a main course, with leftovers that are better cold than reheated.
Roast haunch was a set piece of the English game course, and this entry closely follows the pattern of earlier London cookery books -- the buttered paper over the fat, the flour paste as a sealed cover, the paper frill on the shank bone, the currant jelly. The paste, sometimes called huff paste, was used because early ovens and open-fire roasting cooked unevenly and fiercely; entombing a large lean joint let it cook largely in its own steam, then the crust came off for a short blast of dry heat to brown the outside. The paper frill and the very hot plates mark the dish's other life: it was company food, served with the formality of a joint carried whole to the table.