Os à moelle grillés: Marrow bones

On Rue Dauguerre last fall, the night the Beaujolais Nouveau was released, I sat at the banquette at Le Plan B, next to a well dressed gentleman who was diving into a plate of marrow bones. Cross cut ones, like in the picture below. With a tiny spoon. Very much enjoying himself.  

Julia has a recipe of sorts for marrow bones (MAFCI p. 19), but it's for poaching them quickly to get the marrow for sauces, like sauce Bordelaise. (You can pull the marrow from stewing bones for this as well, like Osso Bucco.)

The fleur de sel is crucial. I got some when I was in La Rochelle--raked from the Atlantic salt flats nearby (and very expensive, for salt). When J first had it, she was skeptical, but one taste and she became a believer.   

You can either split the bones length-wise or crosswise. But because I buy dog bones at Fareway, they are always cross-wise. And they are not as long as I would like. The longer they are, the longer they take to roast. 

There's a great video of the master, Fergus Henderson, roasting them at Saint John's Bread and Wine. I ate there a couple of times when I was in London, but never had the marrow bones. Next time. J bought me his classic cookbook, The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating some years ago. Often she does not much like the offal/abats, but she lapped up the marrow bones. And then it occurred to me: She's a rancher's daughter.

This photo of Le plan B is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Serves two as a first course

Preheat oven to 450º

• 8 beef shank bones cut crosswise, 2 to 3 inches. Or two bones cut lengthwise, 6 to 8 inches long
• fleur de sel
• pepper from a mill
• toast made from good French bread
• Parsley
  
  
  1. Put the bones in a half sheet pan and roast. Begin checking in 15 minutes until a paring knife inserted penetrates easily. Don't overcook or the marrow will melt away. 
  2. Serve with fleur de sel, pepper in a mill, and slices of grilled bread garnished with a chiffonade of parsley.

This photo of Le plan B is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Sauteed liver: Abats 101

There are all kinds of 'abats'--organ meats. (French for slaughterhouse is abattoir.) But liver is the easiest and fastest and healthiest and, well, easiest to take for many people.

Julia has liver exactly right when she says it "cooks hardly more than a minute on each side. Overcooked liver is gray, dry, and disappointing—perfectly sautéed, it is a rosy pink when you cut into it."

The photo shows pork liver, my favorite, cut by the Meat Lab into lamelles, a little thicker than the usual. So it took about two minutes a side.

A lot of paper towels or newspaper will help--to blot the liver and dredge it. If you put it on the counter it makes a huge mess.

• 4 slices (about 1 pound) calf's or pork liver sliced about ½ inch thick
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• ½ cup or more seasoned breadcrumbs or flour in a plate
• 3 tablespoons butter and olive oil combined, or clarified butter

1. Heat the butter and/or oil over high heat. Season the liver on one side with salt and pepper.
2. Dredge the liver in the bread crumbs or flour. Knock the excess of each slice and put each in the skillet.
3. Cook about a minute on each side, or until it's springy to the touch, golden on the outside and pink on the inside (poke and peek until you can feel the doneness). Be sure to remove the slices in the same order you placed them, so they cook evenly.

Julia has some nice variations. But the best for me is the simplest: plain with Dijon mustard. But it takes only a couple of minutes to chop a bit of that precooked bacon that's always in the frig, adding some scallion and stock or wine and mustard to the drippings to make a sauce (which thicken quickly with the crumbs or flour).

Queue de boeuf --Ox tail stew

This is so fun and easy to make. The bones in the tail give this a richness that reminds me of eating beef cheeks in that sweet restaurant in DC, where John and Jen and I went last year. There is nothing like abats. Joyce loved this dish. But it needs a bone plate, like fish.

Julia does not mention queue de boeuf. But it's very much like the tongue recipes or the many beef braises or stews she gives (a la mode). This is where very peasant french cuisine meets bourgeoisie french cuisine. And some nice frozen peas help, microwaved three minutes with butter, salt and pepper, covered.

for 3-4 persons

• onion, minced
• 2 cloves garlic
• 12 peppercorns
• 3-4 pounds ox tail
• 3-4 carrots
• 3.4 parsnips
• 1 bottle red wine
• herbs de province
• 1 teaspoon Kitchen Magic
  
  
• 1/3 cup port, white wine, brandy or water
  
• 3 tablespoons Wondra
• fresh herbs for garnish

1. Place the first group of ingredients in a slow cooker and turn on low. Cook for 8-10 hours.
   
2. Strain the juices in a fat separator and allow the fat to rise to the top. Mix the wine or stock and the Wondra in a small sauce pan. Slowly add the warm stock to the Wondra mixture, stirring over medium heat until the sauce is thickened.
   
3. Place 1/4 of the beef and the vegetables on each plate. Spoon the sauce over each plate. Garnish with the chopped herbs.
   

Boeuf a la Mode: Braised Beef with Balsamic Wine Sauce

For my brother-in-law's birthday, on a Sunday night, this Sunday roast is fun. It also leaves the morning free for Mass and the Sunday Times.

It also makes a good stock to freeze and use for steaks and so on. And good good leftovers (see below)

5 minutes. Serves 6-12. [MAFC I 309]

3-4 lb beef roast, such as boneless chuck
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
½ cup red wine
1 packet dry onion soup mix

1. Spray crock-pot with cooking spray.
2. Place roast on bottom and sprinkle with soup mix.
3. Pour balsamic vinegar and wine over roast.
4. OPTIONAL: parsnips, turnips, and/or carrots peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
   
5. Cover and cook on LOW for 7-8 hours.
   

For a more elegant sauce (another 5 minutes)

1. Strain the sauce through a seive into a saucepan
2. Mix 4 tablespoons Wondra with two tablespoons brandy and two tablespoons port.
3. Stir it into the sauce and stir over high heat until thickened and smooth. Strain into a sauce boat
4. Turn the roast (and vegetables) out onto a serving plate, and pour some of the sauce over it. Garnish with parsley.

For a less elegant sauce

1. Take the leftover beef, add some leftover vegetables, and some Dijon mustard or mayonnaise. Heat or not.
   
2. Enjoy in a sunny corner.
   

Bargemen's Beef a la Plagiariste

I want to test here the notion that two wrongs make a right. I have plagiarized Modern Canine.com, which plagiarized some internet site that plagiarized a cookbook I heard about but can't remember the name of or author of. The recipe is, if I recall right, from the bargemen of the Rhone river, painted in all their romantic simplicity by van Gogh. And it's so simple and so meaty. And the best part is the marrow.

I am neither a militant carnivore, nor militant plagiarist, though I have sympathies with both. One of the best meals I ever had was at St. John Bread and Wine in the East End of London, where they serve abats and all thats. I love very basic meats roasted or braised until it falls off the bone.

I also think that recipes like this one--ancient, earthy, local, simple--defy the concept of plagiarism. On the other hand, some enterprising American must have gone to the wilds of France to bring back the details of this great dish. And it must have appeared in some beautifully illustrated cookbook. And then it was purloined by some plagiarist to the internet, and ceaselessly re-stolen to this day. And yes, by me. And if someone will tell me where it is, I will credit it, chapter and verse, then change my recipe slightly so it is not plagiarism. This is why Creative Commons must be the rule for foodies. This preparation, though, I found elsewhere and have brazenly copied it. It's from the Rhone area of France and it's very hearty.
Ingredients:

• 4 slices beef shank, bone-in, fat trimmed
• 1 teaspoon oil
• 2 lbs. onion, peeled and thinly sliced
• 3 sprigs thyme
• salt & freshly ground pepper

To accompany the meat:

• 4 large garlic cloves, peeled. . . .
• 5 parsley sprigs
• 4 oil-packed anchovy fillets, patted dry

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 300° F.
2. Smear the oil on the bottom of a dutch oven that is large enough to hold the shanks in one layer.
3. Spread half of the onions on the bottom, sprinkle with salt. Put the shanks on top of the onions.
4. Season the shanks with salt and pepper and add the thyme sprigs. Top with the remaining onions. Sprinkle on some more salt.
5. Cover tightly and place in the oven. Braise for 3 hours
6. In a food processor, process the anchovies, garlic and parsley into a paste. Spoon into a serving bowl.

To serve:

Transfer the shanks & onions to a serving bowl. Degrease the pan juices and pour them over the meat. Serve accompanied by the anchovy paste."
A note on time and temperature:
The beef in the photo above was taken direct from the freezer and put put frozen solid, with the onions and thyme, into the oven at 215 degrees at 7:45 am and taken out at 7:30 pm. 12 hours. It was delicious. This recipe is hard to mess up, except perhaps by cooking at too high a temperature for too short a time. I did thicken the juices with a tablespoon of Wondra dissolved in a tablespoon of brandy, while I chopped the garlic and parseley. Five minutes.

Van Gogh - Coal Barges on the Rhone River