Bone Marrow
Featured Ingredient
Our ancestors held bone marrow in high regard. For them it was an important food source. Medieval cooks preferred their bone marrow sweet, adding it to puddings and pastries, while Georgian diners so loved to eat it straight that they commissioned specially designed silver spoons just for the task of scooping it from the bone.
Queen Victoria was another roasted bone marrow lover, reputedly eating it every day. The queen lived to the age of 81, and no doubt she, like most Victorians, regarded it as a health food. Bone marrow is also the main ingredient in pemmican, a food that was key to the survival of early explorers in northern Canada, the Arctic, and Antarctica.
Ingredients
- 1 head of garlic
- Olive oil
- Any 4 vegetables you like, or have left over in the fridge, I used carrots, golden beets, a leek, and half of a white onion
- 2 cups of shredded or sliced cheese of your choice, I used a cheddar/mozzarella mix
- Marrow bones
- Salt and Pepper
Marrow Shopping Tip: It’s hard to judge how much marrow you will get from any bone. Bone thickness is a decent indicator: a 3-inch bone will yield anywhere from 1–3 ounces per 30–90g of bone, but usually it averages around 1½ ounces per 40g.
The bones should already be free of meat and should smell clean and faintly meaty. The marrow itself should be whitish pink in color; don’t worry if you can see blood spots on the surface—that’s normal.
Step-by-step recipe
-
Preheat the oven to 450°F. We'll start by making the roasted garlic, because it takes the longest to bake.
-
Peel away the outer layers of the garlic bulb skin, leaving the skins of the individual cloves intact. Using a knife, cut off ¼ to a ½ inch of the top of cloves, exposing the individual cloves of garlic.watch video
-
Drizzle a couple teaspoons of olive oil over each head, using your fingers to make sure the garlic head is well-coated. Cover with aluminum foil, as seen in the video in the previous step.
-
Stick it in the oven! Bake at 450°F for 25-30 minutes, or until the cloves feel soft when pressed with a fork. While the garlic is baking let's make the vegetable casserole!
-
Clean and chop up all your veggies for the casserole.
-
Add your veggies to the casserole dish in layers. Two layers should be plenty, but feel free to stack to the sky. Pause between each layer to add ½ tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper and ¼ cup of cheese. (I also added a small amount of cream to make the casserole a bit creamier.)
watch video
-
Top off your casserole with a layer of cheese and slip it into the oven to cook for 30 minutes, or until the casserole is golden on top and bubbling.
-
Now for the highlight ingredient, luckily it is the easiest part of the meal to make! Take the bones out of their packaging, wash them off and pat them dry.
-
Place the marrow bones in a roasting pan. Season them with liberally with salt and pepper.
-
Roast for 20–25 minutes at 450°F, or until the bones and marrow are golden brown.
-
Serve and eat immediately with a spoon. It pairs wonderfully with the roasted garlic!
You'll notice we also grilled up a flank steak. Get a nice cut at Whole Foods, season it, and toss it on the grill for a great companion to the marrow and vegetables!
The best part about Chef Club is having a community of other people who love to cook and eat healthy stuff. Share your experiences with this week's meal below: