No. 2177

Deer or Roebuck Fillets a la Lorenzo

Filets de Daim ou de Chevreuil a la Lorenzo

Pare two minion fillets of a deer or a roebuck; suppress the superficial skin covering them and marinate for five or six hours in a little cooked marinade (No. 114), drain, lard the entire upper surface with lardons (No. 4, Fig. 52), range them on a small buttered baking pan, one beside the other, cover with buttered paper and cook in a moderate oven for half an hour, until well done. Remove and cut them into slightly bias slices, and dress either in a straight row or else in a circle, and fill the sides or inside with braised chestnuts (No. 654), stuffed Spanish olives (No. 695), mushroom heads, round, medium truffles and large capers; cover with a Pignola Italian sauce (No. 520) and game glaze (No. 398) and trim around with potato croquettes (No. 2782).

← No. 2176 Epigrammes of Roebuck, Marinade Sauce with T Venison & Large Game No. 2178 Roebuck—Haunch or Quarter—a la Bouchard →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a larder full of cross-referenced preparations; stripped down, this is a larded venison tenderloin, roasted whole, sliced on the bias and plated with a garnish of chestnuts, olives, mushrooms and truffles under a pine-nut sauce.

Cook it far less than he saysHalf an hour in the oven will take a tenderloin well past palatable. Venison loin is almost fatless and turns dry and livery above about 140F internal; modern practice is to pull it at 130-135F, which on a whole minion fillet is nearer 12-18 minutes, then rest 10 minutes before slicing.
Minion fillets"filets mignons" here means the two whole tenderloins that run under the saddle, not the individual steaks the term now describes. On a roe deer they are very small, a few ounces each; on farmed red deer or American whitetail, considerably larger, up to about a pound.
RoebuckEuropean roe deer is not generally available in North America. Farmed red deer or fallow loin is the usual substitute, though both animals are considerably larger; wild whitetail or mule deer loin works but is stronger and leaner still.
Moderate ovenRead as roughly 325-350F. The buttered paper over the top shields the surface and the lardons from scorching while the centre comes up, and parchment does the same job.
LardingLardons (No. 4) are strips of firm pork back fat drawn through the meat with a larding needle. If you have no needle, bard instead: lay thin sheets of fatback or unsmoked bacon over the fillet and tie. The point is fat, not decoration, and it matters on a cut this lean.
The cooked marinadeNo. 114 is a marinade that is boiled and then cooled, built on wine and vinegar with onion, carrot and aromatics. Cool it completely before the meat goes in and keep the whole thing refrigerated for the five or six hours, not at room temperature.
Pignola sauce and game glazeNo. 520 is an Italian sauce (shallot, mushroom, wine, brown sauce) finished with pine nuts; No. 398 is game stock reduced to a syrupy glaze. A well-reduced venison or beef demi-glace with toasted pine nuts stirred in at the end gets you to the same place.
Garnish and yieldBraised chestnuts, stuffed Spanish olives, mushroom caps, whole truffles, large capers and potato croquettes are a full nineteenth-century service garnish; pick two or three rather than all six. Two fillets dressed this way will stretch to about four modest portions as one course of a longer meal.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the house often attached the name of a patron, a visiting dignitary or an occasion to a garnish; what "a la Lorenzo" refers to is not known. Venison and roebuck occupy a long section of the book because game was still a restaurant luxury bought from market dealers rather than farmed, and it arrived lean enough that larding with pork fat was not a flourish but a necessity. The insistence on cooking it through is Ranhofer's own; by present standards, pink venison is the better treatment for a cut this lean.