Selle de Chevreuil et Cuissot

Selle de Chevreuil et Cuissot (saddle and leg of roebuck) teaches the first discipline of lean game: every visible tendon and sheet of peau d'argent must come off before heat, because roasting cannot soften them before the meat dries. The saddle and cuissot take the same treatment, though you cook one joint, not both, and trust temperature rather than forcing two different shapes onto one timetable.

A grand kitchen could send an entire back to the roasting station with a larding needle at hand, while a saucier, a stockpot never off the fire, and a salamander waited for whichever finished preparation followed. This entry calls for none of those sauces or garnishes, so I won't invent them. At home, the whole back becomes a short lumbar saddle or a compact tied cuissot, the larding needle becomes a slim skewer when larding is truly needed, and the roasting pan supplies a jus court from its own fond. The banquet-sized joint and automatic larding were brigade scaffolding. Careful paring, butter, and exact roasting are the dish. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Young, properly hung roebuck wants no marinade at all. A mature or exceptionally lean joint may be larded for protection, but soaking good young meat only blurs the flavor and leaves its surface wet. Before you touch the pan, pare the joint patiently, dry it thoroughly, and know where your thermometer will enter the thickest muscle without meeting bone. That preparation decides the roast.