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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.
A straightforward braise dressed up at the end with sherry, lemon and gherkin. Two things need attention: the liquid quantity, which is too small for modern pans, and the fat, which the original assumes you will skim by hand.
- The hinge: cook it the day beforeOxtail throws a great deal of fat, and skimming it hot as the book directs is inefficient. Cook the meat in its stock, chill overnight, and lift the solid cap of fat off before making the sauce. The gelatine also sets, which tells you the collagen has broken down properly.
- A pint is not enoughAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, and in a wide modern saucepan that will not cover 2 inches of oxtail. Use a narrow, deep pan or a lidded casserole and add stock until the meat is just submerged, topping up as it reduces.
- Blanch and soakThe quarter-hour boil and the three-quarter-hour cold soak were most likely meant to draw out blood so the braising liquid stays clear. It is worth doing if you want a clean sauce, but it is not a safety step and can be skipped in favour of a hard brown in fat, which gives more flavour.
- "Brown thickening"Victorian shorthand for butter and flour cooked together to a nut colour and whisked into the strained sauce. About 1 tablespoon of each is right for a pint of liquid. Modern practice is simply to reduce the strained stock instead.
- A glass of sherryA wine glass in this period is roughly 2 fl oz, not a modern 6 oz pour. Use dry or medium sherry, or a Sercial or Verdelho Madeira; a cream sherry will make the sauce cloying against the gherkin and lemon.
- Button onionsPearl or small pickling onions, peeled whole. Half an hour in the sauce is enough for them to soften without collapsing; if yours are larger than a walnut, blanch them first.
- Time and temperatureThree hours on the stovetop at a bare simmer is realistic for a whole tail. A 300F oven in a covered casserole is easier to control and gives the same result in 3 to 3d hours u2014 the test is the original's, that the meat parts from the bone.
- YieldOne tail for three people is optimistic by modern standards; a 2 to 2d lb tail serves two generously with mashed potato or boiled rice to take the sauce.
Oxtail was an inexpensive cut in Victorian Britain, and its long gelatinous cooking made it popular in plain family cookery as well as in the fashionable soup tureen. The finish is what marks the dish as of its moment: sherry or Madeira, cayenne, lemon juice and minced gherkin recall the French sauce piquante, which is built on vinegar and gherkins.