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Devilled Marrow-Bones
Procure six fresh beef marrow-bones of about three and a half inches long, arrange upright on a block and split in two with a cleaver (or have your butcher split them for you), leaving all the marrow on half of each bone only. Lay the six with marrow in a tin, marrow side up, divide a teaspoon salt evenly and carefully spread a devilled butter over marrow, dredge two tablespoons fresh bread crumbs evenly over the six bones and set in oven for twenty-two minutes. Remove, dress on a dish with a napkin and serve with twelve very thin slices freshly prepared toast separately. N.B. Use the six uncooked half bones for soup purposes.
A straightforward roast-marrow dish that assumes two things a 1920s cook took for granted: that you owned a cleaver and a butcher, and that you knew what devilled butter was. Both need filling in.
- Devilled butterThe book never defines it here because devilling was standard kitchen vocabulary: softened butter worked with dry English mustard, cayenne, a little Worcestershire and often lemon juice and black pepper. A workable ratio is 4 oz butter to 1 teaspoon mustard powder, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne and a teaspoon of Worcestershire.
- Splitting the bonesTake the second option and have the butcher do it. Ask for canoe-cut (lengthwise-split) beef marrow bones, roughly 3 to 4 inches, and specify that the marrow should stay intact in one half where possible. Splitting frozen bones at home with a cleaver is how people lose fingertips.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given. Twenty-two minutes suits a hot oven of about 425F, which is what marrow wants: hot enough to brown the crumbs and loosen the marrow, short enough that it does not render out into the tin and leave the bone empty.
- The hingeWatch the marrow, not the clock. It is done when it is soft and glossy and just beginning to bubble at the edges, still holding its shape. Past that point it liquefies and drains away, so the recipe's twenty-two minutes is probably best treated as a maximum rather than a fixed target.
- Soaking, if you likeModern practice often calls for soaking split bones in cold salted water for several hours, changed once or twice, to draw out blood and give paler marrow. The original skips this; it is optional and affects appearance more than flavour.
- The napkinDressing on a folded napkin was usual for dishes of this kind; the napkin is generally explained as keeping round or rocking items from sliding on the platter and soaking up rendered fat. A rack over a warmed dish does the same job.
- Bread crumbsFresh crumbs, meaning soft crumb from a day-old loaf, not the dry sandy sort sold in canisters. Two tablespoons across six bones is a light dusting: it will crisp rather than form a crust.
- The leftover halvesThe note about saving the six marrow-free halves for soup is sound. Roast them alongside if the oven is on and they will give a browner, deeper stock.
- YieldSix split bones and twelve slices of toast: one bone per person as a savoury or first course, or three each for two people as a full plate. Salt the toast at the table.
Marrow-bones were once ordinary English eating rather than a restaurant flourish, sold cheap by the butcher and served upright in a folded napkin with a long narrow marrow spoon to dig the centre out; Victorian and Edwardian menus place them among the savouries, the small hot course that came after the sweet at a formal dinner and was meant to be salty and pungent enough to finish the wine. To "devil" a dish meant to coat it in mustard and cayenne and give it a hot surface, a usage found in English cookery by about 1800 and applied to kidneys, bones, biscuits and cold poultry alike.