Our top-selling dish at The Musket Room is New Zealand red deer with flavours of gin. I use leg fillet of Cervena red deer and serve it with cilantro purée, licorice jus and juniper meringue. The gin botanicals of juniper especially, and licorice, fennel and celery naturally go well with the venison. At least 80 per cent of the venison over here is from New Zealand. In the US, they have the North American white-tailed deer – but the local venison is wild and because of food regulations you can’t buy it.
I salt the venison loin and roll it in plastic wrap and poach it for 45 minutes at 48°C in a water bath – you can place a water bath in the oven and heat it for a few hours to get the heat to a constant temperature and test it with a thermometer if you want to. Then you sear the venison off on all sides and baste it in crushed garlic, thyme, and butter to serve; I prefer it rare as it’s very lean meat and once you start to overcook it you get a tighter texture and it changes the flavour of the meat.
I like to salt meat well ahead of cooking. It’s best to use kosher salt or fine sea salt because the regular table salt in New Zealand is too aggressive. The salt draws the moisture out initially, but after about 40 minutes the liquid begins to be reabsorbed into the meat and the surface dries out slightly so you get a really good sear on it and more concentrated flavour. It works for chicken, beef and venison. I like to salt lamb racks and leave them in the walk-in fridge for a week before cooking. It ages the meat better and tastes amazing.
I use New Zealand king salmon in the restaurant and, raw or cooked, it’s awesome. Cure it for 12-48 hours in a 50/50 mix of salt and sugar and plenty of citrus zest. For 1 side of salmon, pin boned with the skin on, I’d use ¼ cup sea salt, ¼ cup sugar, zest of 5 oranges, zest of 1 lemon and zest of 1 lime. The curing process extrudes liquid from the salmon and the essential oils in the citrus zest infuse into the fish – it’s not acidic and goes really well with the fat in the salmon.
One way I prepare it is to cure it, then rub off the cure (don’t wash the fish) and sous vide it for 2 minutes at 60°C then put it in an ice bath – you have to be careful cooking fish sous vide as it can become mushy and soft.For a hearty version I roast the salmon and serve it with purple barley, and farro in a light chicken stock with plenty of herbs, like chives, and lemon juice. I also like to cure it and roast it with a glaze made from manuka honey, fennel pollen and finely ground roasted coriander seeds.
Fennel pollen is a fairly common seasoning in the US; you dry the flowering head of the fennel plant with some paper under it and the pollen collects underneath. You can do the same with dill – it adds an extra dimension to the dish.
Another popular dish we serve is cold smoked scallops with fermented black garlic, cucumbers and pears. Maine diver scallops are seared before being tossed in citrus, salt and brown sugar, then they’re smoked with manuka chips and shredded. The dish comes out hidden under a cloche, to capture the smell of the manuka wood chips. It’s a bit different, but for people from New Zealand who come into the restaurant, it reminds them of home.
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