From Nick de Toldi www.gourmetfly.com
Answering the question of an American hunter about mule deer, I would :
– Marinate one night in 75 cl, classic strong red wine, with
– Onions (1 or 2)
– Garlic
– Carrot sliced.
– 1 branche de céleri, thyme, bay leaf, pepper.
The D-day, I would take the piece of venison out of the marinade.
Any time well before: Strain all onions and so forth.
– Take a casserole, put oil and butter and dry and colour all the strained onions etc…
– Add two small handfulls of wheat flour on this.(mix)
– Pour all the wine and first boil strongly then keep gently boiling untill well reduced.
– Add if you want a small glass of brandy or armagnac
– and a small piece of peeled lemon skin.
Keep this on fire for an hour. At the end it must look like a thick sauce but in good quantity.
Add salt to taste at this moment.
Your sauce looks good but is… disgusting !
do not try to correct or re taste, just keep it warm.
Keep your meat all day out of any kind of refrigerator.
Keep your oven hell warm.
When your guests are ready, place your fillet on a steel dish.
Put pieces of butter on top, salt, pepper, herbs, and garlic en chemise on the steel dish.
Cook promptly, to the rare or medium rare point.(Maybe half an hour ?)
Pour very small glasses of water in the dish during the stay in oven.
When you think your filet is OK, take it out and do your best with water to obtain a good concentrated tasty gravy.
Put this gravy in your wine sauce and now the miracle ! your work is just perfect !!!
Prepare a service steel dish, heat it.
Cut you slices of rare filet.
Place nicely in the service dish,
add the blood obtained from cutting mat again in the wine sauce …
and now it is superb !
Make a topping of very warm sauce on the slices. (For this reason, like in the canard au sang, there is no problem if you obtain a too rare meet, as the warm sauce on the thin slices is completing the cuisson). The more it is rare, more it is soft and tender. Even the most americanised guests shouldn’t notice how rare it is if the sauce topping is OK.
Add some very green fresh parsley on top before serving.(for the eyes) Serve with wild native American rice or simply boiled potatoes.