No. 2687

Artichoke Bottoms with Marrow

Fonds d'Artichauts a la Moelle

In case there be no fresh artichokes canned ones can be procured at any time of the year. Drain and range the cooked bottoms in a flat saucepan; moisten with a little good unskimmed stock (No. 194a) with white wine; heat them simply over a slow fire, but if too hard boil them until perfectly done. Soak two or three pieces of raw beef marrow, without the bone; wrap them up in fine pieces of muslin and poach for a quarter of an hour in stock (No. 194a). Just when prepared to serve drain the artichoke bottoms carefully, wipe them on a towel, and drain the pieces of marrow as well; unwrap these and let get partly cold; then cut them across in thick slices and glaze them with a brush; keep them for a few moments at the oven door, then set one slice in the hollow of each artichoke bottom; dress these on a dish, cover with a little brown sauce (No. 414) reduced with Madeira wine, not having it too consistent. For garnishing artichoke bottoms, a macedoine of vegetables (No. 680) may be substituted for the marrow, or else green peas, Parisian style (No. 2745), with which mix a quarter as much cooked chicken, using only the white part cut in three-sixteenths of an inch squares.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A composed vegetable garnish from Ranhofer's Delmonico repertoire: artichoke bottoms warmed in stock, each holding a glazed slice of poached beef marrow under a Madeira-spiked brown sauce. Two things decide whether it works — the marrow must be poached gently, and the sauce must stay loose.

The hinge: keep the marrow below a simmerMarrow at a rolling boil renders to fat and collapses inside its wrapping. Hold the stock at 170-180F, barely trembling, for the quarter hour specified, then let the pieces firm up partly cold before slicing so they cut cleanly.
Soaking the marrowThe recipe says only "soak"; the usual reading is several hours in cold water, changed once or twice and lightly salted, to draw out blood and leave the marrow ivory rather than grey. Buy canoe-cut or cross-cut femur bones and push the marrow out whole; a butcher will often do it.
Muslin means cheeseclothWrap each piece in a double layer of rinsed cheesecloth, tied at both ends like a small sausage, so it holds its cylinder shape while poaching.
Stock No. 194aRanhofer calls for good unskimmed stock, i.e. one with the fat left on. Any good unsalted chicken or veal stock works; leave the fat on it, as "unskimmed" directs.
Brown sauce No. 414His brown sauce, of the espagnole family. A modern demi-glace, or reduced brown veal stock lightly thickened, does the same job. He has it reduced with the Madeira; stop while it still runs — he is explicit that it should not be too consistent.
"Glaze them with a brush"Brush the marrow slices with meat glaze (stock reduced to a syrup) or a spoonful of the reduced sauce. The few moments "at the oven door" means warming them in residual heat, not baking.
Artichoke bottoms todayFresh bottoms mean trimming large globes down to the fleshy base, rubbing with lemon and cooking in acidulated water or a blanc. Jarred or frozen bottoms are the practical substitute the recipe already anticipates; drain and rinse jarred ones well, as the brine is assertive.
YieldThe recipe calls for two or three pieces of marrow, without the bone, and gives no number of bottoms or servings. Reckon one bottom per person as a garnish beside roast beef or veal, two or three as a first course.
The alternativesA macedoine is generally diced carrot, turnip, green beans and peas bound in butter or a little sauce; see his No. 680 for the exact mixture. The peas-and-chicken version wants the white meat cut to the three-sixteenths-inch squares he specifies, about 5 mm, so it sits level in the cup.

A Little History

Fonds d'artichauts — the trimmed base of the globe artichoke, the part left when leaves and choke are gone — was a standard unit of nineteenth-century French garnishing, valued less for its own flavour than as an edible cup. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades and author of The Epicurean (1894), catalogued fillings for it, and marrow was among the most prized: à la moelle appears throughout classical cookery attached to beef, sauces and vegetables alike, marrow being cheap, rich, and prestigious all at once in a way that has since gone out and partly come back. The offhand opening line is the more telling detail. That canned artichoke bottoms could be "procured at any time of the year" suggests a luxury restaurant kitchen already partly freed from the season — the recipe says nothing of where the cans came from — and Ranhofer, writing for professionals and ambitious households alike, saw no reason to pretend otherwise.