No. 114

Cooked Marinade

Marinade Cuite

Mince one pound of carrots, as much onions and half a pound of celery root; fry all these vegetables in a quarter of a pound of lard without letting them attain color, and moisten with two quarts of vinegar and one quart of water or more according to the strength of the vinegar. Add an ounce of parsley leaves, three bayleaves and as much thyme, half an ounce of basil, garlic, cloves, a bit of mace, a tablespoonful of crushed whole peppers and the same quantity of allspice, and some salt. Boil the whole for half an hour, put it aside to get cold and use this marinade for marinating venison, mutton, hare, etc.

← No. 113 Lemons; to Cut Them in Various Manners Elementary Methods No. 115 Raw Marinade →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's cooked marinade is a spiced vinegar bath for strong meats, made in restaurant volume. Most of the work in adapting it is scaling down and rethinking the old habit of leaving meat to steep in a cool larder.

Cool it completely firstThe instruction to "put it aside to get cold" is the hinge. Warm marinade partly cooks the surface of the meat and holds it in the temperature range where bacteria multiply. Chill the strained liquid thoroughly before the meat goes in, and keep the whole thing refrigerated rather than in a cellar or larder as the original assumes.
YieldAs written this makes roughly three quarts of liquid, suited to a large joint of game, which would be turned in the marinade rather than fully submerged. For a single roast or a couple of pounds of mutton, quarter everything: 4 oz each carrot and onion, 2 oz celery root, 2 tablespoons fat, 2 cups vinegar, 1 cup water.
LardA quarter pound of lard is simply the frying medium. Any neutral oil or butter works; you need only enough to sweat the vegetables without browning, so 2-3 tablespoons per quarter batch is plenty.
Celery rootCeleriac, sold whole and knobbly. If unavailable, use an equal weight of celery stalks with the leaves, which give a similar aromatic note though less body.
Vinegar strength"More according to the strength of the vinegar" reflects a period when vinegar varied widely. Ordinary supermarket wine or cider vinegar runs 5 percent acidity; at that strength use the full quart of water, or more, or the marinade will bleach and toughen the meat surface.
"As much thyme"This most likely means thyme in the same quantity as the three bay leaves, so about three sprigs rather than three ounces. The garlic and cloves are given no amount at all, and the mace only "a bit"; for a full batch, a head of garlic, a dozen cloves and a blade of mace are in keeping.
Whole spicesThe pepper and allspice are crushed, not ground, so they release flavour over a long steeping without clouding the liquid. Strain the marinade before use if you intend to make a sauce from it.
Marinating timeNineteenth-century game was often left for several days. Modern farmed venison and lamb need far less: 12 to 24 hours in the refrigerator for a roast, and no more, or the acid turns the outer inch mealy.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of his years cooking at Delmonico's in New York, and its opening "Elementary Methods" section reads like a professional kitchen's standing preparations rather than a home cook's advice. A cooked marinade of this kind belongs to the older French treatment of game: venison, hare and mutton arrived in the kitchen with a strong flavour and uncertain tenderness, and a spiced vinegar bath both moderated the taste and gave the cook a little insurance about how long the meat had hung. The word marinade is generally traced to Latin mare, the sea, by way of steeping food in brine; by Ranhofer's day vinegar and aromatics had largely displaced salt water. The distinction he draws between this version and No. 115, the raw marinade, is a practical one: boiling the vegetables and spices draws out their flavour at once, and a boiled marinade is usually reckoned to keep better than an uncooked one.