The Fifth Quarter

The has been an awful lot of interest in offal. The Italians call it, il Quinto Quarto, the Fifth Quarter which is the title of Anissa Helou's cookbook of offal recipes. Helou took a global approach to her investigation of innards. She begins with various recipes she calls, "The Acceptable Face of Offal," featuring foie gras, wings, roe, and terrine. She eases us into chicken livers and oxtail. Then it jumps into the deep end of the offal pond. There are brains: in coconut cream, poached with the eyes, and red-cooked a Chinese preparation for pigs brains. There are snouts and feet and kidneys and blood.

My favorite offal are chicken gizzards. I have loved them since I was a child. there was an old fox hunting camp near me in Alabama. dinner consisted of a stew of rice and chicken offal, rich livers, chewy hearts and melting gizzards. It is still one of my favorite meals.

Another favorite in the offal clan is oxtail. Every winter when I went to Key West with Harry Lowe, we would stop at tiny Cuban restaurant to have a lovely oxtail stew. Add oxtail to a gelatin and what could be better.

Oxtail in Aspic

3 medium onions, cut in half
2 carrots, cut in chunks
2 leeks, trimmed and cut in chunks
2 turnips, cut in half
1 celery heart, cut in chunks
Few sprigs flat leaf parsley
2 - 3 sprigs rosemary
2 - 3 bay leaves
Few peppercorns
Sea salt
1 ox tail
6 sheets gelatin, about 18g
1 small bunch tarragon, leaves only


Put the vegetables, herbs and seasonings in a large pot. Add 3 liters of water and place a medium heat. simmer for 1 hour.

Add the oxtail and simmer for another 2 hours, or until the meat falls off the bone. Remove the oxtail and let it cool a little before taking the meat off the bone, discarding the skin and any gelatinous bits. the meat will automatically break into smallish pieces. Cover and set aside.

Remove the vegetables from the broth and discard. Strain the broth through cheesecloth and refrigerate until the fat forms a solid layer on the surface. Skim the fat and measure 800 ml of stock.

Break up the gelatin sheets and soak in 3 - 4 tablespoons of water for 5 minutes.

Heat the measured stock and add to the gelatin. Whisk the stock until the gelatin is completely diluted. Stir in the meat and tarragon (reserve a few leaves for garnish) and pour the mixture into a medium bowl - you will eventually need to turn out the jellied oxtail, so choose a nice, easy shape. Refrigerate the oxtail until the liquid is set. This will take around 3 hours. Then dip the bowl in boiling water for 30 seconds or so to loosen the aspic. Turn out the set oxtail onto a plate. Decorate with a few tarragon leaves. Serve with a mixed leaf salad.

While it takes some time to prepare, this is a wonderful dish for a luncheon.

The French Cook

Louis Eustache Ude wrote one of if not the first French cookbook to be published in English. The French Cook was published in Philadelphia in 1828. It is a comprehensive collection of French cooking, including a whopping 99 sauces. It takes time to make 99 sauces!

Ude gives this advice about cooking:

"Cookery is an art which requires much time, intelligence, and activity, to be acquired in its perfection. Every man is not born with the qualifications necessary to constitute a good cook. The difficulty of attaining to perfection in the art, will be beat demonstrated by offering a few observations on some others. Music, dance, fencing, painting and, mechanics, in general, possess professors under twenty years of age, whereas, in the first line of cooking, pre-eminence never occurs under thirty."

For small dinners of 4 to 6, there are no less than 12 to 16 dishes served in two courses. Here is an example of how one set’s a table for a small get-together.



With all that food one is bound to have leftovers, so you will find recipes that begin, for instance, “If you have any roasted plovers left and are short of an entrée….”

I don’t know about you but I NEVER have any plovers leftover as they are snapped up first thing!

Here is a recipe for one of my favorites, ox-tail. Of course, I like my ox tail served over grits, but a Hochepot might work. According to Ude, it’s not the most beautiful dish he ever served!

Ox-tail in Hochepot

The beef-tail being a very plain and common dish, is seldom sent up otherwise than as a tureen. This dish has a detestable appearance, but when well drest is delicious eating. It requires to be well done, and is excellent either with peas, or as a haricot with turnips.

Ladle it over grits and it will look just fine!! In fact, those leftover plovers will be lovely with a side of grits, too.