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Twelve Peppercorns (Salt Two quarts of Second)
Salt. Two quarts of Second Stock.
Cut the ox-tail into joints and blanch them for five minutes. Take them out of the water and wipe them dry. Melt two ounces of the butter in a stewpan, put in the pieces of ox-tail, the vegetables cleaned and cut small, the herbs and the spices. Fry all these together for ten minutes, strain off the fat, and add the stock, and the salt. Let this come to the boil, skim well, and then simmer for four hours.
Take another stewpan and melt two ounces of butter, put in the flour, fry it a little. Then pour in the stock (which must be strained and freed from fat), stir until boiling, draw the saucepan to the side of the fire, and let it boil slowly for about fifteen minutes. Season to taste. Strain the soup into the tureen, serve in it the pieces of ox-tail and thin pieces of carrot and turnip, cut into rounds about the size of a shilling; these must be boiled tender before being put into the soup.
This is oxtail soup, printed here with its ingredient list mangled by the page break — the title has swallowed the peppercorns, the salt and the stock quantity. The method is complete and workable, but you will need to supply proportions.
- What the missing list heldThe method calls for two ounces of butter twice (four ounces in all), flour for the roux, an oxtail, mixed vegetables (the recipe names only carrot and turnip, and those only in the garnish; onion and celery are the likely remainder), a bouquet of herbs, twelve peppercorns and other spices, salt, and two quarts of second stock. An oxtail of about 2 lb would suit two quarts of liquid; for the roux, two ounces of butter will take roughly two ounces of flour.
- Second stockSecond stock is the weaker liquor drawn from bones already used once for first stock — thin, lightly flavoured, and free. Use a light beef stock or half stock and half water; a concentrated modern stock will fight the four-hour reduction and turn the soup salty.
- Ask for jointsOxtail is sold cut into rounds now, so no butchery is needed. Two pounds is roughly one tail. If it comes whole, cut between the vertebrae rather than through them.
- Blanch, then dryFive minutes in boiling water and a thorough wipe are not fussiness — wet meat steams instead of browning, and the blanching draws off the scum that would otherwise cloud the soup. Do not skip the drying.
- Strain off the fatOxtail is very fatty and the instruction to remove fat appears twice. After the long simmer, chill the strained stock and lift the solid cap; the soup is heavy and greasy otherwise.
- The four hours are realOxtail is collagen-rich and needs long, bare-tremble cooking to become tender and to give the soup its body. Four hours at a slow simmer is correct; a pressure cooker will do it in about 50 minutes at high pressure, though the flavour is slightly flatter.
- The rouxFry the flour in butter only "a little" — this is a blond roux, not brown. The fifteen minutes of slow boiling at the side of the fire is there to cook out the raw flour taste; on an electric hob, use the lowest setting and stir often.
- Size of a shillingA shilling was about 24 mm across, so cut the carrot and turnip garnish into rounds a shade under an inch. They are boiled separately so they stay bright and hold their shape in the finished tureen.
- YieldTwo quarts before reduction serves six to eight as a first course, or four as a main with bread.
Oxtail soup was a byword for economy turned respectable. The tail was a butcher's offcut, cheap enough to count as poor man's meat, and it is often said the taste for it spread through the tanneries, where hides came with tails attached and the meat was given away. By the late nineteenth century the long-simmered, roux-thickened version had been thoroughly absorbed into the professional French-influenced kitchen this book represents — hence the two-stage method, the second stock made from bones already worked once, and the carefully cut vegetable garnish returned to a soup that has been strained clear of everything that flavoured it. The clear-thick distinction mattered: the difference between a clear consomm hickickened soup was a mark of a cook's training.