Not Suitable for Vegetarians: Bone Marrow

Finally.  I did it.

The process of planning, cooking, and sharing a meal is one of my greatest joys.  Sunday morning, I made an attempt at crepes with a salted lemon butter caramel sauce.  Suffice to say, it was not fantastic.  Dinner was going to have to be phenomenal to have to make up for the morning's disaster.  Unsure of exactly what the plan was, we headed to Wegmans.  If you haven't been to Wegmans, you are missing out.  After browsing for a bit, a dinner of small plates was decided upon.  While picking out some delicious things - crab stuffed mushrooms, bacon wrapped scallops, cave aged Gruyere, and an assortments of olives - my love discovered that they had frozen marrow bones in stock.  Schwing!

First, I put them into a bath of tepid water and kosher salt to both thaw them and draw out any blood/impurities. I kept them in the bath for about two hours, changing the water once, but I've seen it recommended to soak them for up to 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Stand the bones up on their wide end, and roast for 15-25 minutes, until marrow is bubbly.  In the meantime, slice a baguette and chop a shallot and 4 tablespoons of fresh parsley.  Mix the shallot and parsley together with some kosher salt and black pepper.  In retrospect I wish I'd toasted the bread a bit, so do that.

Once bones have roasted, run a knife around each end.  Marrow should pop out fairly easily.  Serve it with the baguette and shallot-parsley mixture.

On its own the marrow didn't taste like much, just sort of greasy and gelatinous.  With a bit of garnish, however, it turned into an unctuous palate pleasing treat.

Roasted Bone Marrow Crostini


Ingredients:

3 beef marrow bones, 3-4 in long
1 shallot
4 tbsp fresh parsley
kosher salt
black pepper
baguette

Place bones in tepid well-salted water to draw out blood and impurities and/or thaw the bones, for at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours, changing the water at least once.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Stand bones up in roasting pan and roast for 15-25 minutes, until marrow is bubbling.  In the meantime, chop shallot and parsley, mix together with salt and pepper.  Slice baguette and toast slightly.

Once bones are roasted, remove from the oven and run a knife along both ends of the bone around the marrow and it should pop out easily.  Spread over bread and top with shallot parsley mixture.  Mangia!