No. 2178

Roebuck—Haunch or Quarter—a la Bouchard

Hanche ou Quartier de Chevreuil a la Bouchard

Suppress all the nerves from a good haunch of venison; lay it in a cold cooked marinade (No. 114), for two days, then drain, pare it on the kernel end and lard with lardons (No. 2, Fig. 52), range it on the cradle spit (No. 116) and let roast before a good fire from three-quarters of an hour to an hour. Dress and garnish around with stuffed peppers and rissoles of brain, Princetown (No. 947), mixed with a chopped sauce (No. 539), serving pimentade sauce (No. 521) separately.

← No. 2177 Deer or Roebuck Fillets a la Lorenzo Other Game No. 2179 Roebuck—Haunch or Quarter—a la Lytton →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with a numbered reference library at hand; stripped of its cross-references this is a marinated, larded haunch of venison roasted hard and fast before an open fire. The hinge is internal temperature — venison haunch is lean enough that a few minutes past medium-rare turns it grey and dry.

Roebuck and what to buyRoebuck is the European roe deer, a small animal whose whole haunch weighs only a few pounds. It is not generally available in the United States. A haunch or bone-in leg of farmed red deer or fallow venison, 4–6 lb, can be treated the same way, though a larger joint will need longer than the times given, and a boneless leg roast will cook faster.
Suppressing the nerves"Suppress all the nerves" means strip the silverskin and the tough sinew running along the leg muscles. It does not soften with cooking and will make the slices chew like elastic.
The cold cooked marinadeNo. 114 is Ranhofer's marinade entry; a cooked marinade of this period would typically be wine and vinegar with root vegetables, herbs and spices, simmered and then cooled completely before the meat goes in — the recipe is explicit that it must be cold. Two days is realistic for a whole haunch, and farmed venison, being milder and more tender than hung wild deer, needs less.
LardingLardons here are strips of fatback threaded through the surface with a larding needle. Modern venison is lean and still benefits, but barding — tying sheets of fatback or thin-cut bacon over the roast — gets most of the same effect with none of the equipment.
Cradle spit, and the oven equivalentThe cradle spit held a joint in a hinged basket before an open fire, with radiant heat on one side and constant turning. The nearest oven approach is a very hot start, 450F for 15 minutes, then 350F to finish, in a shallow pan on a rack.
Time and temperatureThree-quarters of an hour to an hour suits a small roe haunch cooked hard by radiant heat. Judge by a thermometer rather than the clock: 125–130F at the thickest point, pulled and rested 15–20 minutes, gives rare to medium-rare. Venison taken to 150F is ruined.
The brain rissolesRissoles Princetown are fried pastry cases filled with poached, diced brain in sauce. Bovine brain and spinal cord from older cattle are classed as specified risk material and prohibited from the food supply in the US, EU and UK because of BSE; calf brain is difficult to source legally in many places. Croquettes of the venison trimmings, or the stuffed peppers alone, carry the plate perfectly well.
The saucesPimentade (No. 521) is a pepper-based sauce, served separately in a boat; No. 539 is Ranhofer's "chopped" sauce — a brown sauce finished with chopped aromatics, typically shallot, mushroom and herbs, sometimes with capers or gherkins. Any well-made poivrade or sauce grand veneur, sharpened with a little of the strained marinade, sits in the same place.
YieldA 5 lb bone-in haunch serves eight to ten as Ranhofer intended it, as one course among many; six generously as a main dish.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its game chapter reads like an inventory of what the American sporting table and the European import trade could supply in the 1890s — venison, antelope, bear, and roebuck that would have arrived from Europe or been approximated with native deer. The dishes are named for patrons and public figures in the fashion of the period, so a haunch is "a la Bouchard" or "a la Lytton" chiefly to distinguish one garnish from another; the underlying treatment is the classical French chevreuil, marinated, larded and roasted rare, served with a peppery sauce descended from the old poivrade. The numbered cross-references are the book's defining feature and its practical difficulty: Ranhofer assumed a kitchen where the marinade, the sauces and the rissole forcemeat already existed in quantity, so the recipe as printed is an assembly note rather than a set of instructions for one cook working alone.