Modern cookery for private families

the English stew of the present chapter. Ox-tails, 2; water or broth to cover them; salt, 1/2 teaspoonful, or more; little pepper or cayenne; onion, 1; cloves, 6; carrots, 2 or 3; parsley, 2 or 3 branches: 2-1/2 to 3 hours. BROILED OX-TAIL. (ENTRÉE.) (_Very good._) When the ox-tail is ready for the stewpan, throw it into plenty of boiling water slightly salted, and simmer it for fifteen minutes; then take it up and put it into fresh water to cool; wipe it, and lay it round in a small stewpan without dividing it, just cover it with good beef gravy, and stew it gently until very tender; drain it a little, sprinkle over it a small quantity of salt and cayenne, dip it into clarified butter and then into some fine bread-crumbs, with which it should be thickly covered, lay it on the gridiron, and when equally browned all over serve it immediately. If more convenient the ox-tail may be set into the oven or before the fire, until properly coloured: it may likewise be sent to table without broiling, dished upon stewed cabbage or in its own gravy thickened, and with tomata sauce, in a tureen. TO SALT AND PICKLE BEEF, IN VARIOUS WAYS. Let the meat hang a couple of days in mild weather, and four or five in winter, before it is salted or pickled. During the heat of summer it is better to immerse it entirely in brine, that it may be secured alike from the flies, and from the danger of becoming putrid. Trim it, and take out the kernels from the fat; then rub a little fine dry salt over it, and leave it until the following day; drain it well from the blood, which will be found to have flowed from it, and it will be ready for any of the following modes of curing, which are all excellent of their kind, and have been well proved. In very cold weather, the salt may be applied quite warm to the meat: it should always be perfectly dry, and reduced to powder. Saltpetre