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Venison Chops with Grapes
Trim and neatly flatten six nice venison chops. Place in an earthen dish a sliced onion, two tablespoons each oil and vinegar, a sprig thyme, crushed bay leaf, teaspoon each crushed black pepper and salt, turn chops well in seasoning and let infuse for an hour, being careful to turn them once in a while. Pick from stems a pound of fine California white grapes, thoroughly heat a tablespoon melted butter in frying pan, add grapes briskly fry for six minutes, frequently tossing meanwhile, and keep hot. Place chops on broiler, broil for four minutes on each side, dress on a hot dish, arrange grapes around and serve with currant jelly separately.
N. B.--To-morrow there will be Tripe Mode de Caen on the bill for luncheon, and as it takes a very long time to prepare it would be advisable to begin to prepare and cook it to-night.
A quick à la minute game dish that depends on not overcooking either the venison or the grapes. Read the timings as guides for a hot grill, not a household broiler drawer.
- Earthen dishAny non-reactive bowl or shallow glass dish works; the point is that vinegar must not sit on bare metal. Marinate in the refrigerator rather than on the counter for the full hour, turning two or three times.
- BroilingAt the time this book was written, "broil" generally meant direct radiant heat, over coals or in front of a fire, though gas-range broilers were also in use. A ridged cast-iron pan or a very hot grill reproduces it better than an oven broiler; if you use the broiler, preheat it fully and set the rack close.
- Doneness is the hingeVenison chops are very lean and turn dry and livery past medium. Four minutes a side suits chops about an inch thick; pull them at 125-130F internal and rest five minutes.
- Pat them dryWipe the oil-and-vinegar marinade off before the chops hit the heat, and scrape away the onion. Wet, onion-flecked meat steams and the surface will not colour.
- California white grapesThe recipe names no variety; "California white grapes" of the period could mean Muscat-type seeded grapes or the seedless sorts already grown there. Any firm green table grape will do; halve and seed very large ones.
- Six minutes is too long for the grapesModern thin-skinned grapes burst and go to syrup in that time. Two to three minutes in foaming butter, tossed, leaves them hot and just slipping out of their skins.
- YieldSix chops serves three generously, or six as part of a longer menu of the kind this book assumes. The pound of grapes is right for the platter.
- The postscriptThe note about tripe belongs to the book's day-by-day menu scheme and has nothing to do with this dish. Ignore it unless you are cooking the whole week.
Alexander Filippini, associated with Delmonico's in New York as steward and chef, built The International Cook Book as a year of daily menus, which is why a recipe for venison chops ends with a reminder to start tomorrow's tripe tonight. Game with grapes is a standard of French restaurant cooking of the period — the vigneronne or Véronique family, where grapes stand in for the sweet-sour fruit accompaniments long served with venison — and the currant jelly offered separately is the older English convention arriving at the same idea from another direction. The specification of California grapes is the interesting detail: by the 1900s refrigerated rail cars were moving Californian table fruit east in quantity, so a New York kitchen could count on their being available.