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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.
A long braise of a cut that has all but disappeared from British butchery, finished as a warm salad-style ring around a vegetable purée. The technique transfers cleanly to oxtail or lamb shank if tails cannot be had.
- Sourcing the tailsLambs' tails are a by-product of docking and appear only briefly in spring, usually from a farm or a halal or Middle Eastern butcher who will order them. Fat-tailed sheep breeds give a much fattier tail than the thin docked tails Cassell's had in mind; if that is what you get, expect to skim far more fat from the cooking liquor. The original's "probable cost uncertain" still holds.
- Blanch, don't cookThe fifteen minutes in boiling water is a blanch to firm the meat and draw off scum, not a cooking stage. Drain and rinse the tails before they go into the stock or the braise will be cloudy.
- "Draw the saucepan to the side of the fire"On a range this means the barest simmer, with the surface just shivering rather than bubbling. In a modern kitchen a covered pot in a low oven for the three to four hours does much the same job, though the book itself gives no oven setting. A rolling boil will shred the tails and emulsify the fat back into the liquor.
- Boning while warmThe vertebrae come out most easily while the tails are still hot. Bone them as soon as they are drained, then press between two dishes as the recipe directs until cold, so the gelatine sets them into neat flat pieces.
- Degreasing matters hereTail is among the fattiest cuts on the animal. Chilling the strained liquor overnight and lifting the solid cap off is far more effective than skimming warm, and the reduction that follows will be a proper glaze rather than a greasy sauce.
- Mixed spiceThe Victorian pantry "mixed spice" is a sweet blend along the lines of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves, the exact mixture varying from house to house, and not curry powder or mixed dried herbs. A generous pinch is enough for a potful.
- Mirepoix, the French alternativeMirepoix in this period is diced carrot, onion and celery sweated in fat, often with ham or bacon, used as a braising bed rather than a garnish; the book's own MIREPOIX entry, cross-referenced here, gives its exact form. The recipe's alternative is equal quantities of mirepoix and veal stock with slices of bacon in place of the plain stock.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantities, so portioning depends on the size of the tails. The puree in the centre is the starch component, so nothing more than bread is needed alongside.
Sheep's tails belong to the great Victorian category of cuts that no household with any pretension to thrift would waste. Docking lambs' tails was routine farm practice, and the tails, being mostly fat, skin and small vertebrae bound with gelatine, rarely reached the market at all -- which is why Cassell's admits the price is "uncertain, sheep's tails being seldom sold" rather than quoting a figure as it does for most entries. The treatment here is entirely of its period: a long gentle braise, boning and pressing to make the odd shape presentable, a reduced glaze, and a ring on the dish with a pur he classic "en couronne" arrangement borrowed from French service. The note on how French cooks would braise with bacon and mirepoix instead is typical of the dictionary's habit of setting an English method beside its Continental counterpart. Fat-tailed sheep, whose tails are a prized ingredient across Central Asia and the Middle East, kept the cut alive elsewhere long after British butchers stopped offering it.