No. 2573

Saddle of Venison a la Harder

Selle de Chevreuil a la Harder

Roast to a fine color a medium-sized saddle of venison, after having marinated it for two days, and then larded it with lardons (No. 2, Fig. 52); glaze and let stand till cold, then raise up the sirloin part and cut it in pretty slices, either bias or lengthwise. Add to some Madeira poivrade sauce (No. 620) the same quantity of jelly; reduce, despumate and pass it through a tammy; put it away on ice to cool, stirring it incessantly in the meantime until very nearly cold, then dip each slice into this chaudfroid and restore them to their respective places, reshaping the saddle as originally, and entirely cover over with the chaudfroid; then dress on a long dish. Place around on a bed of jelly some artichoke bottoms, having some garnished with small carrot balls, others with turnips, others with cauliflower, others with string beans cut lozenge-shape, and others with English green peas; all of these vegetables to be cooked separately, cooled, well seasoned and mixed with a little jellied mayonnaise (No. 613). At the ends place two fine cauliflowers boiled in salted water and butter, left to cool in their liquid, then drained properly and laid in a vessel to have a seasoning poured over of oil, tarragon vinegar, salt and pepper; baste several times with this seasoning, then drain and cover with jellied mayonnaise. Around the whole lay a pretty border of evenly cut jelly croutons (No. 2442).

← No. 2572 Pyramid of Crustaceans a la Rochelaise and P Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2574 Cold Salmis of Partridges →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a cold buffet centrepiece from Ranhofer's The Epicurean, and it is assembly work as much as cookery: the roasting is the easy part, the chaudfroid coating is where it succeeds or fails. Plan on two days of marinating plus a full day for roasting, chilling, slicing and coating.

The hinge: chaudfroid temperatureThe sauce must be stirred over ice until it is thick enough to cling but still pourable — roughly the consistency of cold heavy cream, cool to the touch but not yet setting. Too warm and it runs off the slices in streaks; too cool and it sets in lumps on the spoon. Keep a bowl of warm water nearby to loosen it, and work quickly on cold meat, since a warm slice will melt the coat straight off.
Chaudfroid, despumate, tammyA chaudfroid is a sauce set with aspic and used cold as a coating. To despumate is to skim the scum and fat that rise during slow reduction, which is what gives the finished glaze its clarity. A tammy is a fine worsted straining cloth; a double thickness of rinsed muslin or a fine chinois does the same job.
Larding and lardonsLardons here are strips of firm back fat or fatback drawn through the lean with a larding needle, not the diced bacon the word means now. Venison saddle is very lean and dries in the oven without it. If you cannot get a larding needle, barding the saddle with a sheet of fatback tied on serves the same purpose, though it does not give the marbled cut surface Ranhofer wanted.
"Glaze"In this book glaze means brushing with glace de viande — meat stock reduced to a syrup — not sugar. It is applied to the hot roast so it sets to a shine as the meat cools.
The marinadeTwo days in a cooked or raw wine marinade was done in a cold larder. Do it in the refrigerator, in a non-reactive dish or a zip bag, turning once or twice a day. Pat the saddle completely dry before larding and roasting or it will steam rather than colour.
RoastingRanhofer gives no time or temperature. A medium saddle of about 5-6 lb takes roughly 25-30 minutes at 425F for the initial colour, then a further stretch at 350F. Because the dish is served cold and sliced, take it further than you would for a hot roast — around 135-140F at the thickest point — as rare venison looks purple and bleeds into the coating once chilled.
Chill before slicingThe saddle must be thoroughly cold, ideally overnight, before the sirloin is lifted and cut. Warm meat gives ragged slices and weeps juice through the chaudfroid.
The jellyThe aspic in the sauce, under the vegetables and in the croutons was made from calf's foot and clarified veal or game stock. A strong homemade game or veal stock set with leaf gelatine, then clarified with an egg-white raft, is the workable substitute. It should be firm enough to cut cleanly into cubes but still melt on the tongue.
VegetablesCook each separately and refresh in ice water so the colours hold; peas and beans in particular go grey if they sit warm. Season them while barely warm, when they take salt and vinegar best, then bind with the jellied mayonnaise only once fully cold.
YieldA saddle dressed this way serves 10 to 14 as part of a cold buffet. It is designed for a long platter and a table where it will stand for a while — keep the whole thing refrigerated until service and do not leave it out beyond two hours.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this recipe belongs to the section on cold buffet work — the branch of the kitchen where French garde-manger technique was on the most conspicuous display. Chaudfroid, literally "hot-cold," is a sauce built hot and served cold, and coating a carved roast in it and then rebuilding the joint so it looks whole again was a standard trick of nineteenth-century show cookery, descended from the elaborate cold service Carême codified earlier in the century. The a la Harder tag may honour a patron or colleague, as many of Ranhofer's dish names appear to do; the book is full of such dedications and rarely explains them. Venison itself points to the era's game-heavy luxury dining, when wild deer was a regular feature of American restaurant menus, and the saddle — the double loin — was the prestige cut. Poivrade, the peppery brown sauce built on the game marinade, has been the classic accompaniment to venison in French kitchens since well before Ranhofer wrote.