Game – Deja Food

Black Broth

I have no idea who Mr Sparks was, but he obviously made an impression on at least one of the many ladies through whose hands one particular manuscript¹ passed, for there are no fewer than nine of his recipes included over the course of ten pages.

I have been unable to find any printed cookery book with a Mr Sparks as author, so must assume that these recipes were copied from one handwritten source into another as a result of having tasted the dishes in question. I almost have more confidence in a handwritten recipe with a name attached that is otherwise untraceable, because it hints at genuine originality: someone created it, someone ate it, that someone liked it so much, they asked for the recipe.

Original Black Broth recipe — Source: MS7851, Wellcome Library Collection

This black broth is made with venison. Venison is beautifully lean meat, which also means that it can be prone to toughness on the less prime cuts such as shoulder, or the ‘helpfully’ diced meat (that gives no hint as to which part of the animal it came from) available in packs in the supermarket.

Long, slow poaching in a flavoursome broth makes for fall-apart tender meat, perfect for a warming winter soup. This recipe uses a method gleaned from old manuscripts that is the opposite of what we do today, namely frying the meat after it has been cooked. I’ve used it with ragoos and fricassees and have been delighted with the added richness it gives both to the flavour of the meat and to the dish as a whole. The butter might seem extravagant, but it is a sumptuous
complement to the leanness of the venison.

A slow-cooker is ideal for this largely set-it-and-forget-it hearty soup, but you can also cook it on the stove top on a very low heat, or covered in the oven at 140°C/120°C fan/gas 1.

Black Broth

1kg venison shoulder, in one piece if possible, otherwise cut into large cubes.
3 slices wholemeal bread
3 onions
9 cloves
1 bunch parsley
1 bunch mixed herbs
1tbs peppercorns
1tsp salt
1.5 litres beef stock
50g unsalted butter
3-4tbs chopped, mixed herbs
gravy browning (optional)

2-3 slices of white bread, crusts removed, cut into 1cm cubes

marigold petals to garnish

Toast the bread as dark as possible without turning black.
Peel the onions and stick 3 cloves into each one.
Add all of the ingredients down to the stock to the slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours.
Remove the meat from the cooking liquid and trim all fat, skin and connective tissue. Cut into suitably-sized pieces if not already cubed.
Strain the cooking liquid and discard the solids. Remove all fat from the broth, either with a separator jug or by chilling the liquid in the fridge and allowing the fat to solidify on top, then lifting off. Taste and decide if the broth requires any embellishment. You can improve the flavour of the broth, if necessary, with various flavouring sauces such as, but not limited to, mushroom ketchup, walnut ketchup, anchovy essence, Henderson’s Relish, Worcestershire Sauce, Marmite, Bovril, soy sauce.
Melt the butter in a large pan and add the pieces of cooked venison.
Braise the meat over a medium-low heat, turning often but carefully, to avoid breaking it apart further, until the meat is richly browned.
Return the meat to the broth and heat through. Add the chopped herbs and taste to check the seasoning. Add pepper, salt and more of the flavourings as required. If you’d like your broth darker, use a drop or two of gravy browning.
Add the cubed bread to the remaining butter and toss over medium heat until crisped and browned.
Serve sippets (for that is what you have just made) and marigold petals (if available) sprinkled into the broth.

¹ MS7851, Wellcome Library Collection. Various marks of ownership are written in the book, in a number of hands. ‘Elizabeth Browne 1697’, ‘Penelope Humphreys’, ‘Sarah Studman’, ‘D Milward’ and ‘Mary Dawes Jan 18 1791’.

Venison Pie

19th century, Game, Savoury Pastry

This is a great Deja Food way to transform the cooked venison from a joint into another meal. Since the filling has already been cooked, there is little shrinkage during baking, thus making it a fabulously sturdy picnic pie once cold.

Whichever way you choose to enjoy it, remember to serve with redcurrant jelly.

Venison Pie

500g cooked venison
salt and pepper
300g cooked potatoes
venison, beef or lamb stock, thickened with a little cornflour
beef or lamb dripping pastry, made with stock instead of water.
1 large egg to glaze

A 24cm spring-form tin.

Divide the chilled pastry into two pieces, one large than the other.
Cut off about 1/3 of the pastry and roll out for the lid of the pie. Cut it to size with 2cm extra all round. Cover with cling film and set aside.
Gather the trimmings together with the rest of the pastry and roll out for lining your greased pie tin. Be sure not to have your pastry too thin, as it will have to support a lot of filling – no less than 1cm on the sides and a little thicker over the bottom half of the pie. Let any excess pastry lie over the edges of the tin.
Chill the tin in the fridge until required.
Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6.
Cut the meat into cubes, discarding any fat or connective tissue.
Season well with salt and pepper.
Cut the potatoes into cubes roughly the same size as the meat.
Add the cubed potatoes to the seasoned venison, together with enough gravy to coat.
Add the filling to the pie and press down firmly. Spoon over a little extra gravy.
Moisten the top edges of the pastry with water and cover with the pre-cut lid. Press firmly to seal, then crimp the edges either by hand or with the tines of a fork. Use the offcuts of pastry to form decorations and secure to the lid using a little water.

Venison and Potato Pie decoration — Pie decoration example

Cut a vent hole for steam, then whisk the egg and brush over the top of the pie.
Bake for 30-40 minutes until the pastry is crisp and brown and the filling hot.
Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then remove and serve, or if eating cold, allow to cool fully in the tin.

Christmas Pie

19th century, Game, Savoury Pastry

Charles Elmé Francatelli, 1863

This is a version of the traditional raised pie that graced the sideboards of many a rich household going back centuries. With much time being devoted to celebrating the festive season, the amount of time spent waiting on the kitchen could be drastically reduced with a sideboard groaning under selection of cold cuts and pies to slice throughout the twelve days of Christmas.

The most famous Christmas pies were undoubtedly from Yorkshire, whose frequently gargantuan sizes inspired both awe and wonder, not to mention expense.

“The host of the Angel Hotel, at Whitby, last week, set before his friends a Yorkshire Christmas Pie, seven feet in circumference and containing four stones of flour, 12lbs butter and suet, a brace of pheasants, a brace of partridges, two geese, two rabbits, ten chickens, six ducks, two tongues, one turkey, and six pounds of ham.” ¹

The traditional format of these pies consisted of the birds being boned, seasoned, rolled and then stuffed one inside the other, in the manner of Russian babushka dolls, quite putting the modern ‘turducken’ to shame for its amateurishness. Hannah Glasse’s recipe of 1747 called for a turkey, a goose, a fowl, a partridge and a pigeon. In addition, to fill up the gaps around the main bird, on one side was laid a jointed hare, on the other side woodcock, and “more Game, and what Sort of wild Fowl you can get.”

These large pies were frequently packaged up and sent to London as gifts, or merely as provisions for the festive season. Unfortunately, their size and sturdiness wasn’t always a guarantee of safe travel. In 1832, The Age newspaper carried the following morsel of information in it’s roundup of news snippets column, the Georgian newspaper equivalent of an “And finally…” news item:

“The Lord Chancellor’s Christmas Pie upset, broken and devoured by dogs.”

Adapted from his book The Cook’s Guide and Housekeeper’s & Butler’s Assistant, Francatelli’s recipe simplifies the difficulty of baking so many different types of game and poultry from raw, by pre-cooking the birds to medium rare, filling the pie with the meat, and then finishing the cooking when the pie is baked. The baking time is also considerably reduced.

This recipe has a lot of steps, none of which are particularly difficult, but you can spread them out over a couple of days rather than feel obliged to have one mammoth kitchen session.

Christmas Pie

Seasoning
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp mace
1/4 tsp cloves
1 tsp peppercorns
2 crushed dried bay leaves
1.5tsp dried basil
1.5 tsp marjoram
1.5 tsp winter savoury
1.5 tsp thyme
0.25tsp chilli pepper
0.5tsp sumac dried mango powder
1tsp garlic powder

Forcemeat
150g butter
1 clove of garlic, chopped fine
1tsp salt
500g rindless streaky bacon, chopped
500g chicken livers, rinsed

Filling
1 whole turkey leg, slow-cooked overnight on a raft of celery, carrot and onion
An assortment of game birds, preferably with carcass, such as:
1 duck crown
1 goose crown
1 pheasant
2 woodcock

Savoury jelly
1 litre of beef stock
turkey stock from cooking the turkey leg
Any trimmings/bones from cooking the game birds
1 onion
2 carrots
3 sticks celery
2 bay leaves
1tbs black peppercorns
3 sprigs thyme
1 blade mace
1 batch game pie pastry (see page xx)
1 large egg for glazing.

Preparing The Pie Components
Set aside 1 tablespoon of the seasoning mixture for use on the filling.
Melt the butter for the forcemeat in a large pan with the chopped garlic.
Add the chopped bacon and cook for 5-10 minutes.
Add the chicken livers and sprinkle with the seasoning mixture.
Cook until just pink in the middle.
Remove from the heat and tip into a food processor fitting with a chopping blade.
Blitz until smooth, pour into a bowl, cover and set aside until required.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4.
Season the game birds with salt, pepper, and the tablespoon of the seasoning mix.
Spread with a thin layer of the forcemeat.
Arrange in a baking tray and brush over with melted clarified butter.
Bake until just cooked through (internal temperature of 74°C).
Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes.
If using crowns or whole birds remove the breasts, as whole as possible, from the carcass and strip the rest of the meat from the bones. Allow to cool completely then cover and chill in the fridge until needed.
Put the remnants of the carcasses into a large pan, together with the stocks, seasonings and vegetables for the savoury jelly.
Bring to a boil, then cover, turn down the heat and simmer for 2-3
hours to allow the flavours to develop.
Strain the stock twice: once through a fine sieve and then again through dampened muslin to remove all the unwanted solids.
Allow the stock to cool, then chill in the fridge. Remove the fat from the surface of the chilled stock and decant the stock into suitable containers.
Make a note of how solid, or not, the stock is when cold, and when the time comes to mix the gelatine, adjust accordingly: if the stock is fairly stiff,
then little or no gelatine will be required, if it is a soft-set, then just half the regular quantity of gelatine may be all that is required.

Constructing The Pie
Cut off about 1/3 of the pastry and roll out for the lid of the pie. Cut it to size with 2cm extra all round. Cover with cling film and set aside.
Gather the trimmings together with the rest of the pastry and roll out for lining your greased pie tin. Be sure not to have your pastry too thin, as it will have
to support a lot of filling – no less than 1cm on the sides and a little thicker over the bottom half of the pie. Let any excess pastry lie over the edges of the tin.
Spread a 1cm layer of forcemeat all over the inside of the pie. Arrange a layer of the meat and cover with a layer of forcemeat to fill in any gaps. Continue layering until all the filling and forcemeat has been used up.
Brush the top edges of the pastry with water. Lay the pie lid over the top of the pie. Press firmly around the edges to seal. Trim any excess pastry using the back of a knife, then crimp the edges of the pie to decorate. Use the trimmings to make decorations for the top of the pie.
Cut a 1-2cm steam vent in the top of the pie, large enough for the savoury jelly to be poured through once the pie is baked.
Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6.
Brush the lid of the pie with beaten egg and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 70°C. If the top starts browning too much, cover loosely with a sheet of baking parchment or foil.
Remove from the oven and set aside to cool for several hours. When almost cold, measure out 600ml of the savoury jelly and warm in a pan. If using gelatine, soak as many leaves as required in cold water before draining and adding to the stock.
Stir until the gelatine has melted.
Before you start pouring the savoury jelly into the pie, you might want to check whether there are any holes in your pastry. Carefully remove the pie from the tin and inspect closely. You can either mix up a flower and water paste to fill any cracks, or wrap the sides and bottom of the pie tightly in cling film: this won’t stop the leaks, but it will keep everything contained until the jelly has set.
Return the wrapped pie to the tin before adding the jelly.
Pour the jelly a little at a time through the hole in the top of the pie. Use a jug and/or a fine funnel.
Allow time between pourings for the liquid to permeate the pie filling – it has to find and fill all the air pockets between the meat.
Leave to set in a cool place, or, if you have room, in the fridge overnight. The jelly will seal off any air pockets and thus prolong the shelf-life of the pie.
Properly stored, it can adorn a sideboard buffet all the way from Christmas almost to the New Year.

1 “Local and General Intelligence”, The Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser (Leeds, England), Saturday, January 7, 1843; Issue 269. p3.

Roast Haunch of Venison

17th century, Game

Mary Perrot, 1695

A haunch of venison is a glorious thing and very evocative of grand dining halls and long trestle tables of feasting lords and ladies. It’s also very straightforward to roast – you could simply follow the cooking times and temperatures for beef – but it is important to bear in mind that, venison is extremely lean in comparison, which means it can be prone to drying out if the heat is too harsh.

A great many of the old manuscript recipes I’ve read opt to slow-cook venison in wine and butter under a coarse paste of flour and water to keep all the moisture sealed within. However, I’ve selected this recipe because not only is it very straightforward, but you can also choose how elaborate you wish to make it: a simple, unadorned roast or embellished with a savoury herb stuffing.

I liked the two unusual details which address the potential problem of drying out your joint: brushing with beaten egg-white and then basting with cream. The egg-white seals the joint as it cooks and the cream contains just enough richness to keep the outsides moist, and then caramelise into a richly-flavoured sauce.

Roast Haunch of Venison

1 boneless haunch of venison
1 large egg-white
1 litre double cream

Stuffing
1 bunch mixed herbs – parsley, rosemary, thyme, winter savoury, pennyroyal, etc.
100g soft white breadcrumbs
50g fresh suet
5 anchovy fillets, rinsed and chopped finely
3 large yolks
salt
pepper

Mix the ingredients for the stuffing into a smooth paste and season with salt and pepper.
Unroll your venison and spread the stuffing mixture over the inside of the meat.
Re-roll your joint and tie firmly with butcher’ twine.
Weigh your stuffed joint and calculate the cooking time. If you like your venison medium-rare, then just 10 minutes per 500g is sufficient. For medium-well, you should calculate at 15 minutes for every 500g. For something inbetween, select something between these two times.
Whisk the egg-white and paint over the outside of the joint, making sure the whole surface is covered. The egg-white will cook quickly and form a protective seal, thereby helping the joint to retain moisture.
Put your joint onto a rack in a roasting tin. If you don’t have a meat rack, slice 2 or 3 onions in half and arrange, cut side down, in the middle of the tin. Arrange your joint on top of the onions.
Put your roasting tin into the oven and turn the heat to 200°C/180°C Fan, Gas Mark 6.
After 15 minutes, open the oven door and pour over the cream. Baste the joint every 15 minutes until done. If you have a thermometer, the internal temperature should range from 52°C (rare) to 60°C(medium).
Remove the joint and wrap in foil to rest for 20 minutes. Add a couple of tea towels or a hand towel for etra insulation if you think it might take longer to bring all the elements of your meal together.
Remove the onions, if using, and season the cream and meat juices left in the pan to make the sauce.