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🤢 Frankly Gross 1909

Ox Palates Rolled and Stuffed

The roof of the ox's mouth, simmered many hours, pressed, skinned, and rolled round a stuffing.

From
The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie
Published
1909
Yikes Scale
Iffy

Exactly as printed, 1909

Ox Cheek Soup is made same way, see Soups, but with more water. That recipe also describes Ox Cheek Stewed in greater detail than this. Ox Kidneys. See reference in recipe for Poached Eggs, under Eggs. Ox Palates Rolled and Stuffed.

The ox palates are cleaned and slowly simmered many hours till tender enough to roll. Press them with a weight and skin them. Roll them up with quenelle mixture inside, and finish them in oven, glazing them. Add a good sauce such as you have with tendrons, and put peas in the centre of the dish.

Oxtails.

The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie, 1909. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

Entirely safe, and genuinely skilled cooking. Palate is cartilage and connective tissue, which is why it takes hours: you are converting collagen to gelatine, and the result is silky rather than chewy.

It is off the menu now for reasons of supply rather than safety. Almost nobody butchers for palates any more, and the labour is out of all proportion to the yield.

Notes from the 21st century

  • It was a standard hotel garnish. Blanched, scraped of its rough skin, simmered until gelatinous, then cut into rounds. It appears across the period's grand cookery.
  • The pressing matters. Weighting it while it cools sets the gelatine flat, which is what makes it possible to roll it round a stuffing at all.
  • Lady Clark's book is a working notebook. Compiled from her own kitchen and her friends', published after her death, which is why entries cross-reference each other so casually.

Also in this book

Don't take our word for it. The complete book is online, free and searchable.

Read the original page →

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