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Oxtail, Hungarian
Cut a fresh oxtail into two-inch-long pieces, removing the very thin end portion. Split the large pieces in two, place in roasting pan, sprinkle over a teaspoon salt, baste with three tablespoons hot fat and set in oven for forty-five minutes, turning once in a while. Take up and place them in a braising pan, sprinkle over three light tablespoons flour and briskly shuffle pan for one minute. Pour in one and a half pints water, season with two teaspoons salt, a half teaspoon paprika and mix well. Tie in a bunch two leeks, a branch celery, sprig thyme, bay leaf, blade marjoram, bean garlic, and add to pan with onion having two cloves stuck in it. Pour in one gill pure tomato juice and two gills demi-glace, cover pan, set in oven for one hour, then bring pan to oven door. Cut three large raw potatoes in one-inch-square pieces, add to pan, lightly mix, re-cover pan and reset in oven for another hour. Remove, lift up bouquet and onion, take up the pieces of oxtail and potatoes with skimmer and dress them on hot dish. Skim fat from gravy, strain it through a Chinese strainer over the meat and serve.
A professional-kitchen braise written in shorthand: no oven temperatures, French stock terms, and a few ingredient names that have drifted. The essentials translate cleanly.
- Oven temperaturesNone are given. For the initial 45-minute browning a hot oven, in the region of 425F, will colour the tail rather than steam it; the covered braise that follows is better slow, around 325F, since a hard boil tightens the meat.
- Gills and pintsA gill is half a cup, so one gill of tomato juice is 1/2 cup and two gills of demi-glace is 1 cup. The pint and a half of water is 3 cups by US measure.
- Demi-glaceEspagnole sauce combined with brown stock and reduced down — a standing preparation in a professional kitchen of the period. A cup of well-reduced homemade brown stock, or a good commercial demi-glace concentrate diluted as directed, does the same work. Skip it and the gravy will be thin and flat.
- Bean garlic, blade marjoramA "bean" of garlic is a single clove; a "blade" of marjoram is a sprig. Both go into the tied bouquet with the leeks, celery, thyme and bay, which is lifted out whole at the end.
- Chinese strainerA chinois, the conical fine-mesh strainer. Any fine sieve will do; the point is to catch the herb debris and any flour lumps after skimming.
- Cooking timeTwo hours of covered braising is the minimum for oxtail and often not enough; it may want two and a half to three hours before the meat gives up the bone. Judge by feel, not the clock, and add the potatoes only for the final hour as written.
- Skimming the fatOxtail throws a great deal of fat. Skimming the hot gravy, as directed, catches some of it; braising a day ahead and lifting the set fat off cold catches nearly all of it, and the dish reheats better for the rest.
- YieldOne oxtail, roughly 2 to 3 lb cut up, with three potatoes serves three or four. Nothing else is needed but bread and something sharp — pickled cucumber or a green salad.
Oxtail was long a butcher's leftover rather than a cut anyone paid much for, which is why it turns up across European cookery in braises that trade time for tenderness: the tail is almost all connective tissue, and only slow moist heat converts that collagen into the gelatin that gives this gravy its body. What makes this version "Hungarian" is essentially the paprika and the tomato — a shorthand for Hungarian cooking on hotel menus, a simplified nod to gulyás and pörkölt rather than any specific Budapest dish. The rest of the method is straight French hotel practice: a bouquet tied with string, an onion clouté stuck with cloves, demi-glace from the day's stockpot, and a chinois to finish.