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Marrow Bones with Tenderloin Steak
Cut the bones four inches long; cover each end with a round of dough to keep in the marrow.
Tie the bones in a cloth, cover with boiling water, and boil one hour. Remove cloth and paste, and serve on or around tenderloin steak; or the marrow may be removed from bone when cooked, and spread on slices of hot buttered toast. Cayenne and salt are always served with marrow bones.
A straightforward preparation that survives almost unchanged on restaurant menus, though the cooking method has shifted from boiling to roasting. Two details in the original need translating.
- The dough is a seal, not a foodThe "round of dough" is a luting paste of flour and water, stiff enough to hold its shape, pressed over each cut end so the marrow does not melt out into the water. It is discarded with the cloth. Do not use pastry or anything enriched with fat.
- Ask for the right cutFour-inch lengths cut across the shaft of a beef leg bone (femur or tibia) are what is wanted here — what butchers now call center-cut or pipe-cut marrow bones. Canoe-cut bones, split lengthwise, are for roasting and cannot be sealed or boiled this way.
- An hour is too longModern practice usually gives center-cut bones something like 15 to 20 minutes, whether simmered or roasted in a hot oven, until the marrow is soft and translucent but still holding together. Over a full hour much of it will melt out, which is presumably why the original seals the ends at all.
- Soaking firstMany cooks now soak the bones in cold salted water for several hours, changing it once or twice, to draw out blood and give the marrow a cleaner colour. The original text says nothing about this step.
- Cayenne and saltThe instruction that they are "always served" with marrow is sound. Marrow is fat with almost no seasoning of its own; coarse salt and a sharp pinch of cayenne, added at the table, are what make it read as food rather than grease.
- With the steakCook the tenderloin separately to your preference and set the bones around it at the last moment. The marrow is a garnish and a sauce in one — spooned over the hot steak it melts into the juices.
- YieldOne bone per person as an entrée alongside steak; two per person with toast if the marrow is served alone. Serve on hot plates, as marrow congeals quickly.
Marrow was a delicacy in British and American cooking well before Lowney's appeared, and the Victorian and Edwardian table had specialised equipment for it — long narrow marrow scoops in silver, and folded napkins wrapped around the bone so it could be held. Serving it on toast, as the second half of this recipe allows, was standard savoury course fare in England, and the boiled-and-sealed method described here is the older technique, predating the roasted split bones now common in restaurants. Its appearance under Entrées in a book published by the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate manufacturer, is a reminder that these promotional cookbooks were full general household manuals first and advertising second; a book that only did chocolate would not have earned a place on the kitchen shelf.