{"id":6612,"date":"2016-01-05T21:00:29","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T21:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=6612"},"modified":"2016-01-05T21:00:29","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T21:00:29","slug":"venison-sauce-poivrade-roasted-carrots-brussels-sprouts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=6612","title":{"rendered":"venison, sauce poivrade; roasted carrots; brussels sprouts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"venison_white_carros_brussels_sprouts\"<\/a><\/p>\n

very happy with this meal<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Holidays and weekends shouldn’t be the only occasions for special meals, and besides, what’s ‘special’ when you’re trying to do your best all the time? \u00a0Still, I have to admit that this was pretty special, and while I served it on an ‘ordinary’ Monday, that wasn’t my original intention. \u00a0It was supposed to be Sunday dinner. \u00a0The fact is, earlier last\u00a0week I had gone\u00a0back and forth in my head about whether to marinate these venison chops 24 hours ahead of time, and in the end decided to play them quite straight (no marinade). \u00a0So I missed my cue for removing them from the refrigerator, and did not realize it until\u00a0almost 10:30 Sunday night.<\/p>\n

The new plan\u00a0for that night\u00a0was to put together a dish of rich pasta<\/a>, and make the venison wait 24 hours.<\/p>\n

Fortunately nothing suffered\u00a0from the delay, and certainly not\u00a0ourselves (the cacio e pepe<\/em> was delicious).<\/p>\n

I had interrupted the sauce preparation just in time, and it might even have profited from the overnight rest. \u00a0At least I\u00a0can avow that it tasted wonderful and even more rich than it looks above. \u00a0My interest is normally in minimal, quickly-assembled meals, but I understand the passion for\u00a0intense spicy\u00a0sauces (usually thought of a cold weather\u00a0thing in northern Europe, but a warm time thing\u00a0around the Mediterranean\u00a0and in south Asia); last night it was very cold outside, and we were delighted to have the oven working to heat both ourselves and this rich meal.<\/p>\n

This venison talk inspires at least one more thought: I\u00a0understand why a medieval or\u00a0renaissance-era lord – and lady – would prefer\u00a0the robust taste of game to so-called, ‘butcher’s meat’, especially after being\u00a0out riding all day, hunting animals (or men). \u00a0Moves<\/a> tells me I only walked 1.6 miles the day we sat down to this meal, so a single chop for each of us was plenty.<\/p>\n

The inspiration for the meal began with\u00a0an accidental sighting of a sign at the\u00a0Quattro\u2019s Game Farm<\/a> stand in the Union Square Greenmarket, ‘Fresh Venison’. \u00a0Before this I hadn’t seen them advertising game more robust than pheasant, so I\u00a0investigated further and, after a conversation with, I think, a member of the family, I ended up purchasing 2 chops from her. \u00a0At the time I thought I might have been too stingy bout the amount, but on the day I cooked them I was certain I\u00a0had gotten\u00a0it right.<\/p>\n

I had very recently purchased David Waltuck’s beautiful big volume, ‘Chanterelle: The Story and Recipes of a Restaurant Classic’<\/a>, and it was my\u00a0inspiration for preparing\u00a0them (the picture on the page facing the\u00a0recipe is awesome); earlier I had seen\u00a0a Mike Robinson video<\/a>\u00a0(I’d never heard of him until I googled ‘cooking venison shops’) which had already persuaded me to cook them as\u00a0simply as possible.<\/p>\n

I didn’t have any venison bones, so I had to try to reproduce the ‘venison stock’ called for in Waltuck’s recipe; \u00a0I think I did pretty well, and even the color looked right.<\/p>\n