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Beef Marrow Garnishing
Open two fine marrow bones by setting them upright on the table, the marrow part on top, and with a sharp blow with a cleaver splitting them in two, striking them on one side only Remove the marrow, put it in freshly-salted water and let it remain for one hour; then take it up, drain, and cut it in slices. Heat one-half pint of Madeira sauce, add the pieces of marrow, a few drops of tarragon vinegar and let it boil up once. Serve with the slices of marrow on top.
Bordeaux Garnish, (Bordelaise.) This is composed of shallots, wine, Spanish sauce and beef marrow prepared as follows: Chop fine a peeled shallot, put it in a sautepan with half a wineglassful of red wine and cook for five minutes; then add half a pint of Spanish sauce, a small quantity of cayenne and cook for five minutes longer. Serve poured over fillets of beef or steaks, place over six slices of beef marrow, previously parboiled for half a minute.
Two garnishes for grilled beef, both built on poached marrow. The whole thing hinges on heat control: marrow is almost pure fat and turns to liquid and grey scum the moment it is overcooked.
- Getting the marrow outSplitting bones with a cleaver works but is unpleasant and unpredictable. Ask a butcher for canoe-cut (lengthwise-split) femur bones, or buy short cross-cut rounds and push the marrow out with your thumb after a 10-minute soak in cold water.
- The salt-water soakThe hour in fresh salted water draws out blood so the marrow poaches white rather than mottled brown. Cold water, and change it once if it colours heavily; this is a cosmetic step, not a food-safety one.
- Half a pintOne cup of sauce, enough for perhaps four to six portions. A wineglassful was conventionally reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so half a wineglassful is roughly 2 tablespoons of red wine — a very small deglazing quantity that should nearly disappear in five minutes.
- Madeira sauce and Spanish sauceMadeira sauce is a derivative of sauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce built on brown roux and veal stock; "Spanish sauce" is simply the English name for espagnole itself. Neither is easy to find ready-made in a recognisable form now; a reduced veal or beef demi-glace, loosened with stock and finished with Madeira in the first case, gives a similar effect with far less work.
- "Let it boil up once"Take this literally. One rise, off the heat. Marrow held at a simmer renders out and leaves the slices collapsed and greasy in the sauce.
- The half-minute parboilFor the bordelaise, thirty seconds in barely-simmering salted water is genuinely all the marrow needs — it should be translucent and just set, still holding its shape. Lift it out with a slotted spoon and drain on a cloth before laying it on the meat.
- Cayenne quantity"A small quantity" here means a pinch. The heat is meant to register only as a background sharpness against the fat.
- ServingBoth versions go over the meat at the last moment, plated hot. Marrow congeals as it cools and the sauce dulls, so neither garnish holds.
Marrow appears in period menus far more readily than it does today, when it has become a fashionable oddity. The bordelaise takes its name from Bordeaux and its red wine, and the classical French version is properly entrecôte à la bordelaise — steak, shallot, red wine reduction, and moelle, marrow. Oscar Tschirky, who was never a trained chef but ran the Waldorf's dining rooms from its opening in 1893 and knew exactly what his kitchen sent out, records both garnishes in the shorthand a professional would expect: the mother sauces are assumed to be standing ready, and only the marrow and the finishing touches are spelled out. That assumption is the main obstacle for a home cook working from this page, and it tells you plainly who the book was written for.