No. 1323

Fried Oxtails

Queues de Boeuf Frites

Select in preference the thickest end of six oxtails, cut them in pieces three inches long, so as to strike the joints. Soak them for one hour, drain, then throw them into boiling, salted water, and let cook for half an hour. Drain again, and set them in a saucepan with a pound of onions, and two pounds of carrots, all cut into slices, three quarts of broth, two garnished bouquets, salt and pepper; let boil slowly for three hours and a half; by that time they should be well done, if not, let them continue boiling longer. When cooked, put them in an earthen dish, strain the broth over the meat; and when three quarters cold, drain, dip them in eggs, then in breadcrumbs and fry them in very hot fat until they attain a good color. Serve a tomato sauce (No. 549), at the same time but separately.

← No. 1322 Oxtails Alsatian Style Beef No. 1324 Oxtails Hochepot →

For the Modern Kitchen

A two-stage dish from Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894): the tails are braised until fully tender, cooled in their own liquid, then breaded and fried. The braise does the work; the frying is only for color and crust.

Scale it downSix oxtails — and the recipe uses only the thickest end of each — is banquet quantity. One large oxtail with a quarter of the vegetables and roughly a quart of broth serves four.
Cut at the joints"So as to strike the joints" means cutting through the natural gaps in the vertebrae rather than sawing bone. Feel along the tail with the knife tip; the pieces separate cleanly.
The soak and blanchThe hour-long soak draws out blood; the half hour in boiling salted water is a blanch to remove scum. Both are worth keeping — they give a clear braising liquid — but you can skim instead if pressed.
Garnished bouquetA bouquet garni: parsley, thyme and bay tied together. Two bouquets for the full six tails; one is plenty for a single tail.
Braising timeThree and a half hours at a bare simmer is accurate for oxtail — the collagen needs it. Judge by feel, not clock: the meat should slide off the bone under light pressure. A 300°F oven in a covered pot is steadier than a stovetop simmer.
"Three quarters cold" is the hingeThe pieces must cool in the strained broth until barely warm, so the gelatin sets and holds the meat on the bone. Bread them warm and they fall apart in the fat. Chilling overnight, then bringing to cool room temperature, works better still.
FryingEgg and fresh breadcrumbs, then 350–375°F fat for 2–3 minutes. The meat is already cooked; you are only crisping the coating, and longer frying dries it out.
The sauceRanhofer's No. 549 tomato sauce is a long-cooked tomato and broth reduction. Any well-reduced tomato sauce with a little of the strained braising liquid stirred in does the job, and it should be sharp enough to cut the richness.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean is essentially his working repertoire written down — which is why a humble cut like oxtail gets a numbered entry alongside filet. Oxtail was cheap butcher's work in the nineteenth century, valued for the gelatin it gives up, and French kitchen practice had long since worked out that the way to make it grand was to braise it soft, set it in its own jelly, then crumb and fry it so it arrives crisp outside and unctuous within. The technique is the same one applied to pieds de porc panés and breaded calf's feet: a long braise followed by a short fry, with the cooling step doing the structural work. That Delmonico's offered oxtails at all — in several styles, as the neighboring entries show — is a reminder that the fashionable American restaurant of the 1890s took its authority from French method, not from expensive cuts.