The Muntjak Deer
As I said, I’m too busy to cook these days.
But needs must, so I defrosted what we had bought on the farmers’ market last weekend (in addition to another pig’s head): a Muntjak deer haunch and a packet of dry-cured streaky bacon. Oh jeez.
I went back to work on my story. This one was supposed to be a tight little thriller about an engineered plague with a strong message but well-paced and concise at the same time. However, I had written myself into a corner and had to go over all of my virology notes again (which are substantial) before starting another web search and ending up trashing the entire sub-plot. The final product may only be 8000 words long, but I’ll have written a goddamn novel by the time I get there. When I looked up from my futile slog it was 18:15. Maybe I could get back to it while the joint was in the oven.
It started with peeling and boiling a kilo of damn tiny potatoes. Then I had to saw the rind off 10 individual, little, twisted strips of bacon with a knife that I had forgotten to sharpen and the fat seeping into a cut in my thumb and probably causing an infection. Then I had to search everywhere for the larding needle (a prized souvenier from my time at Perth College), only to find it at the bottom of the kitchen drawer and thread individual strips of fat into the ear and carefully stitch them into the meat (success rate 1:3). Then I had to dig out the rolling pin and line up the remaining rashers and roll them flat before draping them over the joint. So I lost the godamn kitchen string. Found it in a box with the cleaning gear (wrong location). Eventually I ended up with a neatly wrapped joint. The potatoes were in danger of disintegrating. I rooted around for the steel sieve, then for a plastic bowl, then for the beef dripping. I crushed a handful of pepper corns in the mortar because the peppermill was bust. Eventually, the joint and potatoes were in the oven. Then I had to do the red cabbage. Then I remembered the gravy and the tub of jellied chicken stock which I had forgotten to defrost. By the time all was done, it was time to eat.
The joint wasn’t expensive and looked scrawny—all bone and tendons. But the tiny deer, always on the run, had developed enormous leg muscles with long fibres for faster contraction. I roasted it fast and hot, then rested it for 15 minutes. This is very important. The lean meat was succulent and tender with a very slight gamey, almost beefy flavour. It hadn’t been hung long but it didn’t need it.
The upshot is that the joint would have served six people comfortably, perhaps even eight. So we’ll have roast Muntjak deer for two days and stew for perhaps another two. No need to cook for a while 🙂
Tags: 'Round the World Recipes, Tag Index
Denni