No. 681

Marrow and Chives Canapes Garnishing

Garniture Canapes a la Moelle et a la Ciboulette

Have sixteen oval shaped bread croutons, slit them all around a quarter of an inch from the edge, and fry them in clarified butter. Empty out the centers, and garnish the insides with slices of marrow previously plunged into boiling water, drained, and seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper; dredge over the top some finely shred chives, and set them for one minute into a warm oven; before serving cover with a Madeira sauce (No. 492).

← No. 680 Macedoine Garnishing Garnishings No. 682 Marrow Fritters Garnishing →

For the Modern Kitchen

A garnish rather than a dish in its own right: sixteen fried bread cases filled with poached beef marrow, meant to be ranged around a roast or a large joint at the moment of service. Nothing here is difficult, but the marrow has a narrow window between set and melted.

The hinge: don't overcook the marrowMarrow goes from firm and nutty to liquid fat in under a minute of real heat. Ranhofer plunges the slices into boiling water; lift them out as soon as they turn from pink-white to opaque ivory and drain at once. The final minute in the oven is to warm the assembled canape, not to cook anything.
Sourcing marrowAsk for centre-cut beef marrow bones, cut crosswise into 2-3 inch lengths, or canoe-cut lengthwise. Soak them in cold salted water for several hours in the refrigerator to draw out blood, then push the marrow out whole and slice it into rounds.
Clarified butterUsed here because whole butter's milk solids burn at frying heat. Melt butter gently, skim the foam, pour off the clear fat and discard the milky residue. Ghee works identically.
The croutonsCut oval slices from a close-crumbed white loaf, thick enough to hollow out; the recipe does not say how thick. Score a quarter-inch inside the edge with a small knife before frying, then lift out the lid and hollow the centre once they are golden and cool enough to handle. Day-old bread cuts far more cleanly than fresh.
Madeira sauce (No. 492)Ranhofer's is a brown sauce with Madeira. A good demi-glace loosened with stock and a splash of dry Madeira, reduced until it coats a spoon, stands in for it. Add the wine at the end so it does not cook flat.
Chives and cayenneShred the chives fine and add them just before the oven; they scorch and turn grey with any real heat. Cayenne here is a whisper, a pinch for the whole batch, meant to cut the fat rather than register as heat.
Yield and serviceSixteen pieces, enough to border a platter for eight to twelve at table. Assemble at the last moment and sauce them as they go out; a marrow crouton that stands for ten minutes is a greasy crouton.

A Little History

This is No. 681 in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium of the cooking he directed at Delmonico's in New York over some three decades. It sits in the Garnishings chapter, a section that only makes sense in the context of grand service, where a roast or a releve arrived surrounded by a border of small, separately made items chosen to echo or contrast with it. Canape in this older usage means the fried or toasted bread base itself, not the modern cocktail nibble; a la moelle is simply "with marrow," and ciboulette is chives. Marrow was a luxury of exactly this kind in nineteenth-century French kitchens, unctuous, cheap in raw material and expensive in labour, and it turns up throughout Ranhofer attached to beef, to sauces, and to fritters (his No. 682, the very next entry).