Roasted bone marrow has long been a restaurant favorite, whether it’s served with crusty slabs of bread as a luxe appetizer or alongside a hunk of steak as a gild-the-lily side. It's the spreadable essence of everything there is to love about beef; the kind of thing that takes a perfectly reasonable meal down a rabbit hole of decadence.
But for most people, bone marrow falls squarely in that category of ingredients best left to chefs to deal with. Roasted Bone Marrow. It sounds so fancy and complicated, right? Well, we’re here to tell you that, while it may be a little fancy, it’s basically one of the easiest restaurant-y things you could possibly bring home. ____ Here’s everything you need to know to nail it.
What We Talk About When...
Sure, all animal bones have marrow in them. But when you see “marrow” on a menu, it refers almost exclusively to the milky-white stuff found inside the femur bones of beef cows. Why so specific? Because those are some of the thickest, straightest bones on the animal, which means more—and more easily accessible—marrow.
Throw Me a Bone
Any butcher shop, whether it breaks down whole animals or not, should be able to hook you up with some marrow bones (calling ahead doesn’t hurt). That said, we like to be choosy about where we get them. We don’t want to get too Portlandia about it, but fat from pasture-raised animals just tastes better, and since marrow is basically all fat, we try to source the grooviest bones we can.
Once you’ve got a line on some, it’s important to specify how you want your butcher to prep them. You’ll sometimes find marrow bones cut crosswise into cylinders—great for tossing into a soup, stew, or braise—but for scooping and spreading, we prefer them cut lengthwise to expose more of that beefy goodness. Could you split them at home? Julia Child says so, and recommends going at it with a meat cleaver. But since we’re not Julia Child, we’ll let our butcher take care of it with a band saw, thank you very much.
That, friends, is a cross-cut marrow bone. Photo: Alex Lau
The Marrow of the Matter
Once you’ve got your bones home, the hard part is basically done—you’re just a hot oven away from troughs of buttery, beefy goodness. (Some recipes we’ve read recommend soaking the bones in salted water for while before cooking, but we’ve never found it to make much of a difference). The key to nailing roasted marrow bones is to be aggressive, both with your seasoning and roasting temperature. You really want to give them a good dusting of salt before cooking, the same way you would a thick, marbled rib eye. Remember: The fattier the cut, the more salt it needs to let the flavor shine through. And high-temperature roasting is crucial to getting the kind of brown, caramelized crust you see on marrow bones at restaurants—20 minutes at 425__°__ should do the trick. After that, it’s just a matter of toasting some bread to spread it on, setting out a bright little salad on the side to cut all of that fat (we like one with parsley and celery leaves), and you’ve got a restaurant-worthy dish that’ll have you gnawing on bones.
