Beef marrow two ways part 2

So two days had passed and the marrow had soaked in the brine long enough, it was time for another overly indulgent lunch. (See part 1 here)


The supporting ingredients are pretty much the same as the last marrow dish. You need the freshness of the parsley, saltiness of the capers (and well salt) and the acid of the pickled onions to counter the extreme richness of the marrow. Although you could get away without having pickled onions just add a dash of lemon juice in the mix.


The marrow is drained from the brine and dried on a couple of paper towels.


Dust it in some flour.


Fry in oil until golden. Grape seed or canola are good as they have a neutral flavour.


Drain off the excess oil, and then chuck in a big chunk of butter (because butter makes everything better and well why the hell not) and fry until crisp and golden.


Drain the marrow on some paper towels to soak up any excess fat.


Serve on a toasted slice of baguette. I toasted mine under the grill and then finished off over the open flame of my cooker to give it a charred/roasted flavour.

Beef marrow two ways part 1

We picked up a beautiful pork shoulder from Gipps Street Butchery and on a whim I asked for some marrow bones as a lunch time treat, plus there was a recipe from the Michael Ruhlman website I was keen to try out.


Well firstly the lunch time treat is dead simple, grill some bread, chop up capers with parsley, olive oil and a dash of lemon juice, spoon out some pickled red onion (recipe here).

Put the bones on a roasting pan and put in a very hot oven (230°C) for about 20 minutes.


Serve, enjoy and be prepared for a mess.


The other lot of of bones got prepared entirely differently, I'll cover the prep in this post and the cooking in part 2.

Soak the bone in warm water for 15 minutes to soften the fat and make it easier to extract the marrow. Sections from the middle of the bone work best, avoid bone that is near a joint.


Now the messy bit, pushing the marrow out. There will be a big and small end of the marrow, at the small end apply some pressure and with luck the marrow should slide out, if it doesn't you'll have to use a knife or other utensil to slide up the edges of the bone to dislodge the marrow.


Prepare a brine, I used a 5% salt to water mix (1 litre of water & 50 grams of salt).


Soak the marrow in the brine for a couple of days to draw out the blood. You'll need to change the brine a couple of times a day.

Continue to part 2.

Cottage pie

The line up for the stew, brown the shins, remove, then soften onion and carrot, deglaze with the red wine, add bay leaves, mustard Worcestershire sauce, paprika and thyme. Cook until done, you could do this in a slow cooker, oven, stove or pressure cooker.

Prepare the vege, I used some pickling onions just simply peeled, small mushrooms and a large dice of carrot.

Once the meat is falling off the bone tender, pull the meat out on to a board and pull in to large chucks. Make sure to push the marrow out of the bones (discard the bone). Strain the liquid, and start reducing it, make sure to taste it so you don't over reduce and can adjust the seasoning. Add the vege and meat to the liquid and cook till it's almost a glaze.


Pile the mixture in to a dish.


Spoon over some pea purée (which you'd obviously make while the above part is cooking), A dash of lemon, cooked peas, salt and pepper with a small amount of garlic whizzed up.


Mash potatoes with some butter and milk, season well.


Spread it on top of the peas and score with a fork.


Grate some cheese on top.


And either place under a grill until golden, or you could prepare the dish the day before and then bake until hot and golden.

Shin & Stout

Another meal for one, tonight beef cooked in stout, rich and tasty. The ingredients used are thyme, mustard, stout, carrots, garlic, bay leaves, shallots, onions, beef shin, worcestershire sauce; and mashed potatoes made from sour cream, butter and potatoes(obviously).

Dice up the onion, garlic, and one of the carrots.


Brown the shin on both sides. Remove from the pot. Add the diced carrot and onion and cook until soft and beginning to colour.


Test that the beer is of a suitable quality.


Pour the quality tested beer in to the pot along with a spoon of mustard, the thyme and bay leaves. Reduce. Once it has reduced by half put the beef back in and cook on high pressure for about 20 minutes (or I guess a slow simmer for about 60? if conventional).

While it's cooking, chop the remaining carrot in to bite size pieces, and peel the shallots. Cook the potatoes.

After 20 minutes, and 10 minutes on natural pressure release (or about 5-10 min before the 60 is up) remove the beef and strain the liquid discarding the vegetables. Reduce the liquid (if needed). Add the carrots, shallots and beef back to the pot with the liquid and cook for 4 minutes under pressure.

While it's cooking, mash the potatoes with butter and sour cream, season well.


Serve.


My favorite bit of the shin is the marrow.