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Sheep's Tails

Throw the tails into boiling water for fifteen minutes. Drain them, and put them into a stewpan with as much boiling stock as will cover them. Let the stock boil, skim carefully, and put into it a bunch of sweet herbs, two or three onions, a pinch of mixed spice, and a little pepper and salt. Draw the saucepan to the side of the fire, and let the tails simmer gently for three or four hours. When done enough, drain and bone them, and press them between two dishes till cold. Let the gravy cool, remove the fat from the top, strain it, and boil it quickly till it is considerably reduced. Cut the ends off the tails, and simmer the latter in the reduced gravy till heated throughout. Dish them in a circle, and put into the centre sorrel, or onion, or lentil, or haricot, or peas puree (see PUREE), or brown cucumber sauce, and send brown gravy or tomato sauce to table with them. French cooks, instead of stewing the tails in stock, would braize them along with slices of bacon, and equal quantities of mirepoix (see MIREPOIX) and veal stock. Time to stew the tails, four hours. Probable cost uncertain, sheep's tails being seldom sold.