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Venison Cutlets (Brush Trim the cutlets)
Brush Trim the cutlets and lard them on both sides. with olive oil, dust with black pepper and let stand over night. Broil and serve with the following sauce : Stew two tart apples, chopped very fine, in one cupful of port wine until tender, add one tablespoonful of currant jelly, a dash of cayenne, and the juice of half of a lemon. Strain and serve at once.
The opening line has been scrambled in printing — read it as "Trim the cutlets and brush them on both sides with olive oil, dust with black pepper and let stand over night." The word "lard" may be a stray from a neighbouring entry; larding with pork fat is a genuine venison technique, but it cannot be done with olive oil.
- The overnight restDo this in the refrigerator, covered, not on a counter as an unheated period larder would have allowed. The oil coating is there to keep the surface from drying and to carry the pepper, not to tenderise.
- What a venison cutlet isUsually loin chops or medallions cut from the saddle, though period cutlets were also taken from the neck; figure roughly 3/4 to 1 inch thick. Trimming means removing the silverskin and any sinew, which will not soften under a broiler.
- Broiling a lean meatVenison loin has almost no intramuscular fat. Cook it hot and briefly — a few minutes a side under a preheated broiler or on a very hot grill — and pull it at 130-135F for medium rare. Past 145F it turns dry and livery, which is often blamed for venison's poor reputation.
- Rest before servingFive to eight minutes off the heat. The original says nothing about it; the sauce should be ready first so nothing waits.
- The portOne cup of a ruby port, not a tawny or a sweet fortified substitute. The apples should be a firm tart variety — Granny Smith, Bramley — and cut fine enough to collapse in about 15 minutes of gentle simmering.
- Strain, or don'tPressing the apple through a sieve into the wine gives a thicker, glossier sauce than pouring off the liquid and discarding the pulp. Straining in the sense of discarding the fruit leaves a very thin sauce; reduce it a little further if you go that way.
- Season at the endNo salt appears anywhere in the recipe. Salt the cutlets just before broiling and taste the sauce after the lemon goes in; the currant jelly and the reduced port can both read sweeter than expected.
- YieldThe recipe states no yield; the quantity of sauce would plausibly suit four to six cutlets, or two to three servings as a main course.
Venison served with a sharp fruit sauce is one of the oldest surviving pairings in English and Anglo-American cookery: currant jelly, port and a squeeze of citrus against dark, lean game meat appears in eighteenth-century sauces and lives on in the Cumberland sauce of Victorian tables. Game laws tightened sharply over the twentieth century, and such chapters shrank or disappeared from general cookbooks.