When Bruce Bromberg opened Blue Ribbon restaurant in New York in 1992, he paid less than 50 cents a pound for marrowbones. Now, the chef-partner pays $6 a pound for those same femurs.
“That’s the supply-and-demand scenario,” Bromberg said.
Spurred by a desire on the part of waste-conscious chefs to use previously underutilized animal parts and a growing interest in the art of butchering, marrow is appearing in more preparations on more menus.
An early promoter of marrow, Bromberg noted that 18 years ago his butcher needed instructions on how to cut the beef bones.
“It was used just for stocks then, and now it’s the star [of menus],” he said. “It’s almost hard to go somewhere without seeing bone marrow.”
Marrow is familiar to diners accustomed to seeing beef bones in stews from France, where “it was a really cheap, delicious snack,” Bromberg said, adding, “There’s also something fun about getting primordial.”
Marrow is inexpensive and readily available for chef Sheamus Feeley of the recently opened Farmstead restaurant in St. Helena, Calif., which is owned by Long Meadow Ranch. The ranch raises cattle as well as other livestock and plants on 650 acres.
“We try to use everything we can,” Feeley said. “So the whole idea for me is to use every part of the cattle.”
He serves marrow wood-fire-roasted in the bone, and also mixed into a compound butter that tops steak at the 112-seat restaurant. Feeley sells between 12 and 20 orders a day of the roasted marrow served with carrot and flat-leaf parsley for $12.
The “marrow butter” enriches grass-fed steaks raised on the ranch, such as a 12-ounce New York strip priced at $32. For the butter, Feeley brines femur bones to extract the marrow easier, then dices it before mixing with Jersey butter and a red-wine reduction seasoned with shallots and bay leaf.
“The marrow has a beautiful richness,” Feeley said.
It should be rich, as marrow is mostly fat with just a small amount of protein, said Mary Anne Eaton, the author of “Nutrition: A Culinary Approach” who also teaches nutrition and food science at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I.
But the fat in bone marrow “is good fat,” Eaton added. “The monounsaturated fat is high, and marrow has a good ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids,” which helps to lower your cholesterol level.
Marrow also contains “conjugated linoleic acid that has been promoted as a cancer inhibitor, and it has antioxidant properties,” she said.
150 calories in a half-ounce serving of marrow
Given that a half-ounce has about 150 calories, marrow is often served in small quantities.
At Dell’anima, a three-year-old Italian restaurant in New York, a $27 hanger steak is topped with a compound butter blended with marrow, anchovies, garlic, lemon zest and lemon juice.
An accidental discovery However, an unexpectedly large delivery of marrow forced Dell’anima chef de cuisine Michael Berardino to be resourceful. Given that he had three times more marrow than usual, he decided to serve it in the bone as a $13 appetizer with grilled toast, lemon and parsley. “People took to it well,” Berardino said, noting he’s considering offering it again. “It was a mistake, but we try to utilize everything and every part of the animal.” He bones out a whole pig for a porchetta seasoned with fennel, fennel pollen and rosemary that sells for $29. He also uses the meat from the pig’s head for testa, an Italian headcheese served at room temperature with pickled ramps and mustard seeds for $10. Chef Michael Symon, also a fan of utilizing less familiar animal parts, sells crispy pig ear on warm spinach salad with fried egg, mushrooms and bacon for $9 at his Roast restaurant in Detroit. He also roasts marrow with sea salt, oregano, capers and hot peppers. The dish requires a 12-minute wait and sells for $9. Big bone country At TAG restaurant in Denver, executive chef-owner Troy Guard features roasted wagyu bone marrow with kumquat, pear and pineapple marmalade in his “Wanna be different?” section of the menu. The starter comes with ciabatta for $15. Also in Denver, Bones restaurant changes its menu daily, but the roasted bone marrow is a staple. With the $12 appetizer is a mostarda that changes depending on available ingredients. The chutney-like concoction recently included dried fig, mustard seed, honey, onions, butter, white wine and red-wine vinegar that were stewed together and then puréed. Bones’ chef-owner, Frank Bonanno—whose name, not the marrow dish, inspired the restaurant’s name—says the appetizer is “one of the top three most popular on the menu.” For each portion he serves two bones that are about 2 inches wide and 2 inches high. At Bonanno’s Luca D’Italia restaurant in the same city, he “pops out” marrow from the bone, coats it with house-made breadcrumbs and then pan-fries it in olive oil. He serves it over a dry-aged New York strip steak for $42. Tricks of the trade Back at Blue Ribbon, the signature marrow is served the same way it has been since opening day: with oxtail marmalade for $16.75. And at Bromberg’s Blue Ribbon Sushi, also in New York, the marrow comes with teriyaki sauce, shaved bonito and fried shiso for $14.50. Both dishes use beef marrow versus veal because the beef is richer in flavor, and the veal breaks down more easily, Bromberg explained. He also found that soaking raw marrowbones in a saltwater solution of eight parts water to one part salt prevents the bones from turning gray. He soaks them for two days and changes the water every 12 hours. To make the bones “pearly white,” he scrapes each with a cleaver. He starts them submerged in cold water, which he brings to a simmer and cooks them at a low heat for five to eight minutes, or until a skewer is easily inserted and removed. If the water boils, “all the goodness of the marrow will go into liquid,” he said. “Once you try that flavor, it stays with you forever,” he said. “People used to joke that it was the poor man’s foie gras, but it’s really even better.”—[email protected]