DEER OH DEER
IN BOTH AUCKLAND and Wellington recently, leading chefs were invited to the world’s first public tastings of deer’s milk.
Deer’s milk? Yeah right, a cynic might say, here we go again: first we had goat’s milk and sheep’s milk, then buffalo’s milk, pig’s milk and even camel’s milk.
Yet deer’s milk is a genuine new chef’s product, not just another gimmick: it’s milk, but it behaves more like thick cream, having double the fat and protein of cow’s milk. It also has a mild, slightly nutty flavour and a clean aftertaste. Thus, its most obvious applications are in desserts, and at the tastings, well-known Auckland chef Geoff Scott put the deer’s milk through its paces – as a yoghurt and a sorbet which might easily be mistaken for an ice cream.
He also presented a vanilla ice cream made with no eggs and a crème brulée made with straight deer’s milk rather than half milk and half cream, as would normally be the case.
The idea for commercial deer’s milk began three years ago when Southland farmers Peter and Sharon Mcintyre set about milking their herd of 74 red deer hinds. Farmed deer are notoriously skittish, so the couple had to devise individual milking stalls. The Mcintyres have names for every one of their animals and each has its own personality: one hind insists on going into the first stall on the left, every day.
Pamu (formerly Landcorp) came on board with technical and marketing support, and cow’s milking machines were adapted for the herd.
Only one to two litres per day is milked from each hind (as opposed to 20 litres per day from a cow), meaning deer’s milk will necessarily be expensive.
The milking season is also very brief – from November to February – so the decision was made to spray-dry the entire output and sell it in packs of six, with each 107g sachet of powder yielding 500ml of reconstituted milk. Prepared properly, the reconstituted milk tastes remarkably like fresh milk, with none of the flavours associated with cow’s milk powder, and certainly none of the lanolin notes some people find in sheep’s milk, or the barnyardy taint occasionally found in goat’s milk.
For now, deer’s milk will only be made available to the hospitality industry. Already the product has made its appearance at special events put on by Charley Noble and Chameleon in Wellington, while at the Hunting Lodge near Auckland, chef Des Harris made a deer’s milk crème brulée so rich and creamy that customers were reportedly sent waddling out the door. DAVID BURTON David Burton attended the deer’s milk tasting as a guest of Pamu
Hawke’s Bay puts on F.A.W.C. Summer – a 10-day culinary festival of the region’s best, now in it’s 7th year. More than 20 Hawke’s Bay wineries, a selection of craft breweries and local cideries will also be serving up their wares. fawc.co.nz