No. 2169

Rack of Venison, Roasted Colbert Sauce

Carre de Chevreuil Roti, Sauce Colbert

Have two racks of venison of seven ribs each, bone, suppress the shine bone (see drawing for rack of mutton Fig. 343); remove the skin covering the meat and lard with lardons (No. 3, Fig. 52); put them into a cold cooked marinade (No. 114) for six hours. Roast, dress on a hot dish, pour over the well-skimmed gravy from the dripping pan, to which clear gravy (No. 404) has been added, and surround with Marchioness potatoes (No. 2797) serving a Colbert sauce (No. 451) separately.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade that already knows his cross-references, so the whole method sits in half a dozen numbered shortcuts. Here is what those numbers stand for and what matters at the stove.

The hinge: internal temperatureVenison rack is almost fatless and turns dry and liverish past medium rare. Roast to 125-130F at the thickest point and rest 10-15 minutes; the loin will carry to about 135F. Ranhofer gives no roasting time or oven temperature at all.
"Suppress the shine bone"A typesetter's slip for chine bone, the spinal column at the base of the ribs. Cutting it away lets you slice cleanly between ribs. Any butcher will french the rack and remove the chine on request.
ChevreuilRoe deer, a small European species not sold in the United States. A farmed red deer or fallow rack of seven ribs is the closest substitute; a whitetail rack works but is leaner still. Two racks of seven bones serve eight to ten.
The cooked marinade (No. 114)A simmered wine-and-vinegar marinade with root vegetables and aromatics of the thyme, bay, clove and peppercorn sort, cooled completely before the meat goes in. Never pour it on warm. Six hours in the refrigerator is plenty for farmed venison, which lacks the strong flavor the marinade was meant to tame.
LardingLardons here are strips of firm back fat drawn through the meat with a larding needle to baste it from within. If you have no needle, bard instead: tie sheets of fatback or caul over the eye of the loin and remove them for the last few minutes to color the surface.
Oven heatStart hot, 450F, for ten minutes to set the exterior, then drop to 350F to finish. A single steady moderate oven will also do, but the racks will not color as well through the fat.
Colbert sauce (No. 451)Not a cream sauce. Colbert is classically a meat glaze finished with butter, lemon juice, chopped parsley and tarragon, sometimes lifted with Madeira, whisked off the heat and served warm rather than hot so it does not break. Serve it separately as directed.
Marchioness potatoes (No. 2797)A piped potato garnish built on a duchesse-type paste of riced potato, egg yolk and butter, browned in the oven. Any piped or croquette potato fills the same role on the platter.
The gravySkim the dripping pan thoroughly, then extend it with clear gravy, meaning a strong unthickened brown stock. Venison drippings are scant, so have half a cup of good stock reduced and ready.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summing-up of thirty years as chef of Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the house style exactly: a French roast, a classical compound-butter sauce, a piped potato garnish, and cross-references to a marinade and a stock made days earlier in a kitchen with the staff to do it. The sauce is named for Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's finance minister, one of a group of nineteenth-century preparations given ministerial and courtly names by Paris chefs long after the men themselves; the attribution is traditional rather than documented. Venison reached Delmonico's tables as a luxury of the autumn game season, when American markets still sold wild deer, grouse and canvasback openly. Market hunting was curtailed within a generation of this book's publication, and the venison a modern cook buys is farmed, milder and considerably leaner than what Ranhofer larded and marinated here.