No. 1580

Calves' Tails with Cabbage

Queues de Veau aux Choux

Take twelve calves' tails, cut the thick ends into four pieces two inches long and parboil them with a pound of sliced bacon; cut a large cabbage in four, blanch it for fifteen minutes, drain, refresh, suppress the core and press out all the water; tie the pieces together. Put the parboiled tails into a stock pot, the bacon, the cabbage and a garnished bunch of parsley; moisten with one pint of stock (No. 194a) season with nutmeg, pepper, and a little salt, and let boil slowly until the tails are done and the stock reduced, then take all from the pot, drain, and dress the tails intercalated with the cabbage and the bacon laid on top; cover with an espagnole sauce (No. 414) reduced with some clear gravy (No. 404).

← No. 1579 Sweetbreads, Zurich Veal No. 1581 Tendon or Gristle of Veal a la Bayeux →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stockpots already going and sauces on hand, so the cross-references do a lot of the work. The dish itself is a straightforward braise; the main obstacles are sourcing and the assumed sauce base.

Calves' tailsRarely sold at retail now; a butcher who breaks down veal can usually get them with notice. Oxtail is the standard substitute and behaves the same way, though it is larger, fattier and needs longer. The recipe gives no yield; twelve tails would plausibly stretch to a table of eight or ten.
Only the thick endsThe instruction to cut the thick ends into two-inch pieces means the thin tapering tips are discarded or sent to the stockpot. They are mostly skin and cartilage and will not give you a portion.
The baconA pound of sliced bacon here means slab bacon or unsmoked pork belly cut thick, not modern breakfast rashers. Heavy smoke and sugar cure will overwhelm the cabbage. Blanching it with the tails draws out excess salt, which matters because the braising liquid is reduced at the end.
Blanch, drain, refreshFifteen minutes in boiling water, then straight into cold water to stop the cooking and set the colour. "Suppress the core" means cut out the tough stem. Squeeze the quarters dry and tie the pieces with string so they hold shape through the braise.
Garnished bunch of parsleyA bouquet garni: parsley stems tied with thyme and bay, sometimes a leek green. Ranhofer uses the phrase throughout the book as shorthand.
One pint of liquidScant for twelve tails. Braise covered in a tight pot so nothing escapes; the recipe keeps it on the stove at a slow boil and gives no oven setting. Expect a couple of hours or more before calves' tails are tender, and longer again for oxtail.
The sauceEspagnole (No. 414) is a brown roux sauce built on veal stock and mirepoix, reduced here with clear gravy (No. 404) for gloss and depth. A well-reduced brown veal stock, mounted with a little butter, gets you to the same place without the two-day roux.
Plating"Intercalated" simply means alternate the tail pieces and the cabbage quarters down the dish, with the bacon laid over, then nap with sauce. Season the finished sauce last, after the bacon has had its say.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set down the whole repertoire, thousands of numbered entries cross-referencing one another like a technical manual. This dish belongs to the frugal end of French classical cookery: tails, ears, tendons and gristle each get their own entries in the veal section, because a restaurant buying whole animals had to sell every part of them. Queues de veau aux choux is essentially a refined version of the peasant pairing of gelatinous cheap cuts with cabbage and salt pork, the same logic that produces petit salé aux choux or a garbure. What marks it as Delmonico's rather than a farmhouse is the finish: the same braise, but lifted from the pot and drained, dressed in alternating pieces, and covered with espagnole reduced with clear gravy.