Eating Odd Bits at my House: It's Voluntary

This is my daughter sampling our odd bits dish from this weekend. I just want you to know that she did not do it under any duress or forcing from me whatsoever. In fact, it’s not like I whip up an odd bits dish for dinner and then tell the family they have to empty their plates a la Mommy Dearest and the scene with the bloody steak. I always give anyone in the house the option to eat whatever (conventional!) leftovers we have and make clear that they are under no obligation to try “the weird stuff.”

Yum!

But guess what: They always choose to try it, which is gratifying. They trust me, but it means I do feel some pressure to make it look and taste the very best I can. One really bad experience could mean they won’t try anything of mine again for a very long time. So I really am doing my best to not screw things up.

This week’s dish was roasted bone marrow. I was going to wait until our half cow comes at the end of this month to try this dish, but we happened to go by a butcher shop during a short road trip, and couldn’t resist stopping in. It was a place called Den’s Country Meats in Table Rock, Nebraska. A tiny little place in the middle of nowhere, at the intersection of grassland and gravel.

Den's Country Meats in Table Rock,  Nebraska

They kept most of their meats in refrigerators set to just above freezing. This extends the shelf life of the meat while making it possible for people to buy meat to cook that night, i.e. no thawing.

In the back I could hear the butchers processing meat, so I thought it would be a good time to request a special order for a dish I’d had on my mind for the past couple weeks. I asked the girl at the counter for some bone disks for the marrow, and she didn’t understand and went to get one of the butchers. I explained again what I wanted, and he responded, “For your dog?” These are not the kind of requests they typically get, I take it. Anyway, eventually I walked out of there with five chunks of bone for $1. (Heckuva deal, heckuva deal.)  

You’ll recall from the previous post that after this, we wound up going to a restaurant that night that had bone marrow crostini on the menu. We ordered that, but I was a little disappointed because it was impossible to see or taste the bone marrow.

So at home, I set about the task of preparing the bone marrow, essentially roasting it at 450° for about 20 minutes. The recipe, from by cookbook Odd Bits, says you’re looking for the marrow to be “loose and giving, but not melted away.”

While that’s roasting, you prepare a small “salad” to go on top.  This consists of some minced onion, flat-leaf parsley (finely chopped – I used cilantro because that’s what I had), a handful of capers (I chopped up some calamata olives instead), and then dressed with a vinaigrette made from the juice of one lemon, an equal amount of olive oil, and a pinch of salt.

The marrow is very fatty. When it’s roasted, there’s the combination of liquidy fat mixed with the marrow flesh. The marrow in the center is pink but brown at the ends.  It doesn’t look all that great. It’s globular and gelatinous-looking when you scoop it out, and spreading it on the toast is a little awkward, but there is no beefy flavor. It simply tastes like the richest butter ever. Topped with a bit of the “salad” it really is a treat. And you can't beat the presentation.

Slices of toasted baguette,  roasted bone marrow, and the "salad" topping.