Roasted Bone Marrow & Parsley Salad
Everywhere I look these days, everyone talks about this signature recipe from a chef who revives the old British habit of eating everything from nose to tail. Of a pig’s, that is. Chef Fergus Henderson’s Roast Bone Marrow and Parsley salad was said to be one of Antony Bourdain’s current death row meals. Everyone from the New York Times’ Mark Bittman to obscure and amateur food bloggers heap praises to this dish. Naturally, I was intrigued.
Bone marrow was child’s play to me. Literally. On regular basis, from the age of 9 or even younger, my father used to take me and my sister to this little street side eatery to have a few sticks of goat’s satay and bowls of bone marrow soup. The best marrow was taken from the shin bones of the goats and they should be cut on both ends for easy slurp. I hate it when one of bones’ end is the joint because then I had to scrape the marrow from the bone cavity with a satay stick and lose all the joy of sucking the melting, rich, decadent substance in one long slurp and a big swallow.
I can hardly go to this chef’s restaurant in London and therefore am determined to make it myself. I am particularly intrigued by the Parsley salad. I am familiar with adding a little chopped parsley in soups or sprinkle some on pasta but as the main leaf for a salad? That’s new.
Anyway, the marrow sold here is not the long, slim, exciting kind. They are from cow rather than veal and they are normally cut into 5 to 7 cm long and full of white matter without spots of congealed blood. They are not the best for this kind of roasting because the marrow often simply melt into fat.
I found a few longish marrow one day and proceeded to make the dish. Served just as the Chef prescribed, with the parsley salad and a piece of toast, it was truly heaven on the first bite. The marrow acts like butter on toast: it gives the luxuriant texture to the dry toast. Topped with the pungent, slightly bitter parsley married with sharp onion and sourish caper and vinegar, the richness is tempered. However, after two marrow, I began to regret the experience. It was simply too rich, too fattening, too oily. I felt like a clogged kitchen sink and, at the end of the meal, I had to brew a strong pot of tea to unclog my throat. Did I do something wrong? Was this dish just a fad resulting from hyperactive food enthusiasts? Was this chicness gone awry?
I’m glad that it’s chic again to eat body parts. I think the culinary world has come to a full circle. First, body parts were eaten out of necessity due to lack of food. Then, as prosperity emerges, people began to move to better, healthier, though not necessarily tastier parts. Apparently our prosperity has reached such a high level that our food doesn’t remotely resemble any kind of anymore but pieces neatly wrapped in clingfilms on supermarket shelves or powdered dry in boxes. Killing animals for food is not alright because people think that all chicken consists of breast meats manufactured in neat fillets by some factories.
I see this as a rebellion to come back to our roots. I see it as a good sign. We’re back to the era of food shortage, those parts need to be used somehow and if traditionally we used to eat them, why not? It’s an additional source of protein and it’s good to utilize everything and waste nothing. It’s certainly less scary than feeding them back to the animal creating a demonic and cannibalistic cycle.
But I’ll use other parts next time or use this part for other stuffs (I tried mashing marrow into meatballs, excellent!). I’m keeping the parsley salad though.
PS: Recipe can be obtained by googling these words: roasted bone marrow, Fergus Henderson, recipe
