Home › The Principles of Cookery › Ox Tail, with Piquant Sauce

Ox Tail, with Piquant Sauce

Take a fresh ox tail, disjoint it, and cut it into pieces two inches long. Put these into boiling water for a quarter of an hour, then soak them in cold water for three-quarters of an hour. Drain the pieces well and wipe them with a soft cloth. Place them in a saucepan, cover with a pint of stock or water, and bring them gradually to the boil. Remove the scum as it rises, and put in with the meat two sliced onions, two sliced carrots, a piece of garlic about the size of a small pea, a bunch of parsley, a small sprig of thyme, a bay-leaf, three cloves, and a little salt and pepper. Simmer gently until the tail is tender and the meat will part easily from the bones. Lift the meat out carefully, strain the sauce, stir into it a glass of sherry or Madeira, a pinch of cayenne, four or five button onions, a tea-spoonful of strained lemon-juice, a table-spoonful of pickled gherkins finely minced, and a little brown thickening. Put back the pieces of meat, let them simmer half an hour longer, and serve them piled up in the centre of a hot dish with the gravy poured over them. Time, three hours to stew the ox tail. Probable cost of ox tail, from 1s. 6d. to 4s., according to the season. Sufficient for three persons.