Noisettes de Chevreuil au Genièvre

Noisettes de Chevreuil au Genièvre (roe deer medallions with juniper sauce) teaches the cleanest lesson in game cookery: lean meat gives you very little time to correct the fire. Let a heavy pan and the first fine wisp of smoke make the crust quickly, then stop while the centre is still rosy. That is the one true thing to know before touching the pan.

The original entry could simply call for the same sauce because it assumed a saucier, poivrade built from a stockpot never allowed to go cold, and enough hands to stew apples while the venison met the fire. Your honest equivalent is a finished sauce from Selle de Chevreuil au Genièvre (No. 1798), warmed gently in a small saucepan, while a heavy skillet supplies the fierce heat of the service range and an instant-read thermometer supplies the consistency brigade repetition once gave. Only the scale changes: eight small noisettes, four generous plates, one cook, one stove, one evening.

The separate sauce station was brigade scaffolding and can go. The finished referenced sauce cannot, nor can the smoking-oil sear or the hot apples, very slightly sugared. Have the sauce and apples ready, dry the venison thoroughly, and give the sear your full attention. Everything depends upon those few minutes.