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Stewed Ox-Tails
Divide two ox-tails into natural sections, blanch them for twenty minutes, and then put them into a basin of water and let them soak for an hour; then drain and put them into a saucepan with five pints of vegetable broth, place it over the fire, when the liquor boils skim it and add one-half pound of onions, sliced, and one pound of carrots turned into cork shapes, three or four cloves, salt and pepper. Remove the pan to the side of the fire and cook slowly for three or four hours, or until the meat is tender. Pour the contents of the saucepan into a colander to drain into another saucepan, take out the pieces of tail, wipe them dry on a cloth and put them into a one-half gallon saucepan. Take the carrots out of the colander and put them into another saucepan, skim off the fat from the liquor, reduce it to half its original quantity, and pour half of it in the saucepan with the carrots and the other half into the saucepan with the pieces of tail. Warm both the carrots and pieces of tail, arrange the latter on a dish, garnish with the former and ten or twelve good-sized glazed onions, pour the gravy over all, and serve. Blanquette of Beef Palates with Truffles Rub some beef palates over with salt, put them in a saucepan with a slice of lemon, a small lump of butter, a saltspoonful of salt, and water enough to cover, and stew them. Cut some truffles into small pieces, season with salt, put them into a fryingpan with a lump of butter, and fry lightly over a brisk fire till cooked. Put the truffles into a sauce blanquette, give them one boil up, move the sauce to the side of the fire and thicken with a liaison of beaten eggs. Drain the palates, skin them, put them in the sauce, then turn the whole into a deep dish, and serve.
A classic braise written in kitchen-brigade shorthand: the cook is assumed to know what a blanquette sauce is, how to turn a carrot, and where the cool corner of a coal range sits. Note that the page runs two recipes together — the stewed ox-tails end at "and serve," and a separate blanquette of beef palates follows.
- The hinge: blanch, soak, then simmer lowThe twenty-minute blanch and the hour-long soak (the recipe says only "a basin of water") are not padding — the usual purpose is to draw out blood and scum so the finished gravy is clear and clean-tasting. Skip them and the braise tends to be muddier and greasier.
- "The side of the fire"On a coal range this meant the cooler edge, where a pot barely trembles. In a modern kitchen that is the lowest burner setting with the lid ajar. A rolling boil will shred the meat off the bone and cloud the stock.
- QuantitiesTwo ox-tails run about 4 to 5 lb jointed, enough for four to six people. Five pints is 10 cups of broth — enough to cover generously in a wide pan; a saltspoonful in the second recipe is about a quarter teaspoon.
- Carrots "turned into cork shapes"Cut into short cylinders roughly the size of a wine cork, or barrel-shaped with a paring knife. It is presentation, not flavor, and plain 1-inch batons work fine.
- Glazed onionsAssumed knowledge in 1896: small peeled onions cooked in butter with a little stock and sugar until the liquid reduces to a shining coat. They are made separately and added at the end.
- The two-pan finishMeat and carrots are reheated apart in their own halves of the reduced liquor so neither overcooks and the vegetables keep their shape. Reduce the strained, defatted stock by half first; it should nap a spoon.
- Beef palatesThe lining of the roof of an ox's mouth, once cheap and common, now a special order from a whole-animal butcher. They need long stewing and the outer skin peels off after cooking, as directed. Veal or lamb sweetbreads take the same blanquette treatment if palates are unavailable.
- The liaisonBeaten egg (traditionally yolks with cream) thickens the blanquette off direct heat. Temper it with a ladle of hot sauce and never let the pan return to a boil, or the eggs curdle into threads.
Oxtail was cheap meat when this book appeared in 1896, and its presence in the Waldorf's repertoire says something about how French technique redeemed humble cuts: the same tail that fed a working household as a thick soup becomes, with blanching, a clear reduced glaze and turned carrots, a plated entrée fit for a hotel dining room. The blanquette that follows works the same trick on beef palates, an offal cut that has largely disappeared from American butchery but was standard in nineteenth-century professional kitchens. Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel, was not himself a chef, and the book reads as a compilation of the hotel kitchen's working methods — which is why so many entries assume the reader already knows what a sauce blanquette is and never stop to explain.