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Broiled Ox-Tails
Wash the tails thoroughly and cut the thick parts into joints, put them in a stewpan with a bunch of sweet herbs, a small quantity of salt and cayenne pepper, and cover with common stock. When the liquor comes to a boil move to the side of the fire and cook slowly for two and one-half hours. Then remove them and drain well on a sieve, brush over with a paste brush dipped in the beaten yolk of egg and cover thickly with finely grated breadcrumbs. Place them on a gridiron and broil over a brisk fire, turning constantly. When ready lay them on a hot dish, garnish with fried parsley and serve with a sauceboatful of tartar sauce.
A two-stage dish: a long gentle braise, then a fast crumbed browning. Both stages matter, and neither substitutes for the other.
- The hingeThe oxtail must be genuinely tender before it goes near the fire — the broiling is only for colour and crust. Two and a half hours at a bare simmer is a minimum; large modern tails often want three to three and a half hours, until the meat gives at the bone but still clings to it.
- Cutting the joints"Cut the thick parts into joints" means separating the vertebrae at the natural gaps with a knife tip, not sawing through bone. Ask a butcher to do it if the tail comes whole. The thin tip end is best kept back for stock.
- Common stock'Common stock' is the book's term for a plain, lightly seasoned beef stock. Any decent unsalted beef stock works; water with an onion, carrot and a few peppercorns is an acceptable fallback since the tails will enrich it themselves.
- Bunch of sweet herbsA bouquet garni of parsley stalks, thyme and bay, tied. "Sweet" here means aromatic rather than sugary.
- Cooling before crumbingNot stated but essential: let the drained joints cool until firm, or the egg wash slides off and the meat falls apart under the brush. Chilling an hour on the sieve makes the crumbing straightforward.
- BroilingA "brisk fire" is a hot grill or broiler at full heat, close to the element, four to six minutes with frequent turning — just long enough to set the crumbs golden. Brushing the crumbed joints with melted butter first gives a better colour than dry crumbs under an electric broiler.
- Fried parsleySprigs, thoroughly dry, dropped into hot fat for a few seconds until they stop sputtering and turn brilliant green. Wet parsley will spit violently.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; two oxtails (somewhere around 4 to 6 lb before trimming) will serve about four as a main course. Save the braising liquor -- it sets to a firm jelly and makes excellent soup.
Oxtail was cheap butcher's meat that French technique made respectable, and by the late nineteenth century it appeared on grand hotel menus in more than one guise: the clear soup, the braise, and a grilled version like this one. The dish closely resembles the classic treatment known as Sainte-Menehould -- braise until soft, coat in egg and crumbs, grill, serve with a sharp sauce -- a method French kitchens also applied to pig's trotters and ears, and its logic is the same each time: long moist cooking to break down collagen, then a crisp shell to give the collapsed meat something to push against. Its inclusion in the Waldorf's repertoire is a reminder that fashionable hotel dining rooms of the 1890s drew on the cheap parts of the animal too, transformed by labour rather than by expensive ingredients. Tartar sauce, cold and acidic, was a common partner for crumbed and fried dishes in this period.