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Braised Ox-Tails with Chestnut Puree
Cut the thickest part of a fresh ox-tail into pieces about three inches long, soak them in water for a few hours, then blanch them. Put some layers of fat bacon and some sliced carrots and onions into an oblong stewpan, add a bunch of sweet herbs and the slices of tail. Add a little salt, cover them with white wine and broth mixed in equal quantities and put on the top some slices of fat bacon or some pork rind. When boiling move the pan to the side of the side of the fire, put some live embers on the lid and braise the contents for five or six hours, adding more broth to keep the quantity.
A classic braise written for a coal range, with the garnish named in the title left entirely to the cook. A heavy lidded Dutch oven in a 300F oven reproduces the embers-on-the-lid method almost exactly.
- The purée is missingThe title promises chestnut purée but the text never mentions it. Plan on separately simmering peeled chestnuts in broth until tender and mashing them with butter and a little of the braising liquid; count on about 1 lb chestnuts for four servings.
- Buying the tailOx-tails are usually sold cross-cut into rounds, though whole tails can still be had from a butcher. Use the thick end joints, roughly 3-4 lb for four people, and skip the instruction to cut them yourself.
- Soaking and blanchingThe soak draws out blood, and the blanch (cover with cold water, bring to a boil, drain, rinse) removes scum so the braising liquid stays clear. Neither step is decorative; skipping the blanch gives a cloudy, greasy sauce.
- Fire to oven"Move the pan to the side of the fire" and "live embers on the lid" together describe gentle heat from above and below. Bring to a boil on the stovetop, then transfer covered to a 300F oven. Five to six hours at that temperature is not excessive for oxtail; expect 3.5 to 5 hours before the meat slips from the bone.
- Fat bacon and pork rindThis means unsmoked fatback or salt pork, not modern smoked breakfast bacon, which will dominate the pot. Blanch salt pork first if it is heavily cured, and account for its salt before adding more.
- The liquidEqual parts dry white wine and broth, enough to cover. Top up with hot broth as it reduces, as instructed, or the exposed pieces will dry and the sauce will over-reduce.
- FinishingThe recipe stops at the braise. Lift out the meat, strain the liquid, chill or skim it well since oxtail throws a great deal of fat, then reduce the strained liquid to a coating sauce and pour it over the tails set on the chestnut purée.
- YieldOxtail is mostly bone. Four servings needs about 3-4 lb of pieces; the dish improves if braised a day ahead, chilled, and the solidified fat lifted off.
Oxtail entered fine hotel cookery by way of thrift: it is a cheap, gelatinous cut that repays long braising with a sauce of remarkable body, and by the late nineteenth century it appeared in both English clear soup and French queue de boeuf braisée. A braise of this kind -- bedded on bacon and root vegetables, moistened with wine and broth, sealed with fat and cooked with heat above and below -- was standard French technique of the period rather than a named dish. Chestnut purée is the autumn and winter accompaniment of that tradition, generally paired with braised beef and game.