Bones...Not for Soup....for Roasting

There is a restaurant here in San Francisco, Bar Tartine, that has a lovely menu ranging from locally harvested veggies to fatastically prepared roasts. My most favorite item on their menu is the roasted beef marrow. I had never tried this dish before going to Bar Tartine.

Let me tell you, once I had them, I found every excuse to go there for dinner as often as possible. It is not inexpensive, so it was quite an undertaking financing my new obsession. But, they never let me down. Each and every order showed up at the table piping hot with a lovely herbed salad and perfectly toasted bread slices. Frankly, I like going there with vegetarians, that way I get the whole order to myself.

Today, I am on day two of staying home sick. As mentioned in my previous post, I have taken to cooking my own comfort foods. And, so, this morning when I was at Whole Foods picking up fruit, I wandered over to the meat counter. They did indeed stock (no pun intended...ok, well maybe a little pun), beef marrow bones.

But then, the questions began: "is it for soup?" "did you want the femur or the knuckles?" "how many pounds did you need?"

Short of telling the butchers about my craziness for the Bar Tartine version, I tried to give them the sense that I knew what I was doing. I explained I was just roasting them and serving them with toast. He figured out that I wanted the femur cut into smallish pieces and went off to saw the bones apart for me. In the end, I didn't come off as an idiot, and came home with $12 worth of the loveliest beef marrow I've ever seen (ok, I guess I'd never seen it raw until this morning...).

In the end, I realize that Gran Fran did make osso bucco periodically utilizing the same (or very close to the same) types of bones. Once I got them marrow home, I placed some in a pan and stared at it. It resembled the cooked appetizer I loved from Bar Tartine, but it also seemed like a daunting task to get these bones from raw to roasted.

The recipe I based my first batch on came from Group Recipes. I used it mostly to make sure of how to put the bones in the pan, but improvised from there. So, herewith, my version (I've now made two batches) of an almost-as-good-version of Roasted Bone Marrow ala Bar Tartine.

Roasted Bone Marrow serves 6 as an appetizer

Ingredients: 3 lbs Beef Bone Marrow cut into 3 inch long pieces

• 1 cup loosely packed Italian Parsley
• 3 cloves Garlic
• 3 Tbsp Lemon Juice
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

• Place marrow bones cut side up in oven proof skillet or roasting pan.

• Roast in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, just until the marrow gets soft, the outside of the bones are lightly browned and the excess fat on the bones has browned as well.

• While bones are roasting, finely chop the parsley and garlic. Mix with the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. If you have an electric chopper, this is a good time to use it.

• Toast bread pieces.

• Serve with small spoons to scoop out the heavenly marrow, which can be placed on the toast with the parsley mixture.

ps check out those photos, huh? thanks again to gran fran and joe for my swanky new camera! xo

Good Things to Come.....

You know how when you are home sick and all you want is some comfort food? In my fantasy land, there would be some kind soul here at my house who would make me the most wonderful soups, stews, etc., while I'm home sick (as I am today). But, alas, no such person exists, just me and my little one here at the house. Therefore, I have taken my sick food needs into my own hands. The next few posts will showcase my relatively easy comfort foods. And, will also premier photos from my new super-cool camera (thank you Gran Fran and Joe!).

So, sit back and relax and start planning your shopping trips, because you may need to pick up a few things.

Gran Fran as Julia

Fall is always a nice time of year to make stews and soups. In our family, it's also when Gran Fran's birthday occurs. As she heads into a new decade (no, I won't tell you which one), these next few weeks' worth of posts will focus on her coming up as a cook. First, we have a small ode to the Queen, Julia Child. Stay tuned for some of Gran Fran's own pieces.

As you have probably already surmised, if you've read several of these posts, Gran Fran is an awesome cook who uses mostly intuition, learned over decades of cooking, alongside her unquenchable thirst for cookbooks.

One of my earliest mother-daughter memories is of a fundraiser that we did when I was about 5 years old. Gran Fran volunteered for a membership drive for our local PBS television station. We were stationed in a small fold up booth in front of the Bloomingdale's in Fresh Meadows, Queens (which I believe is now a K-Mart).

In exchange for membership, new members would get a cookbook. Not just any cookbook, but THE cookbook. Which one, you may ask? It's the Julia Child tome of greatness, Mastering The Art of French Cooking.

I recall Gran Fran waxing poetic about the recipes and the program. Remember, this was 1975, or so (oops, there it is again, a veiled reference to my actual age), not a time when a lot of people were spending hours make Bernaise sauce at home, but it was beginning to happen. Gran Fran sold some memberships that day, but mostly, she got to represent one of her culinary heroes to the public.

Recently, I asked her which of Julia's recipes was her favorite. She said "Well, of course it's Beef Bourguignon." I know, it's a typical recipe to choose, but it is one of the best, and we grew up eating it a lot. Gran Fran made it and the house smelled like a French bistro. The warmth of the kitchen, the smells of the red wine mingling with the bacon, thyme and onions is an unmatchable sensory memory for me.

Beef Bourguinon ala Gran Fran with a nod to Julia Child serves 8

One gigantic non-reactive pot is needed!!

Ingredients:

• 3 to 3.5 Lbs Bottom Round, cubed (any good beef stewing meat works here)
•  1/4 Lb Double Smoked Bacon
• 2 Tbsps Olive Oil
• 2 Carrots, cut into chunks
• 1 Onion; diced
• 2 Cloves Garlic, peeled and diced
• 2 Tsps Flour
• 3 Cups Dry Red Wine
• 1 Tbsp Tomato Paste
• Salt
• Pepper
• Thyme
• Bay Leaf

Method:

• Preheat oven to 325°.
• Boil diced bacon in 3 cups water for 10 minutes. Refresh bacon under cold water. Dry well.
• Heat oil in a large skillet. Add bqcon. When bacon browns, remove from pan and set aside.
• Dry beef well, then add it to the hot skillet.
• Brown well on all sides.
• In a heavy, nonreactive stew pan, add some oil from the skillet.
• Saute onions and carrots in stew pan until golden brown. Then, sprinkle the veggies with the flour (which ultimqtely helps thicken the stew).
• Brown until golden over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes.
• Add browned meat to veggies.
• Add red wine to the skillet you used to cook the meat. Stir up all browned particles and bring to a boil. Add this to meat in stew pot.
• If needed, add water to stew pot so all so meat is covered.
• In a small non-reactive sauce pan, place tomato paste, salt, pepper, garlic and thyme, with a little bit of olive oil. Stir over medium heat until paste has thinned a bit and all herbs/spices have been incorporated. Add to stew pot.
• Bring the stew to a boil on top of the stove.
• COver closely (another gran franism) and plce on lower rack in the 325° oven.
• Leave undisturbed for 1.5 hours.
• Then, stir,put cover back on and simmer another 1.5 hours.

This stew tastes even better when reheated, so make a day or two in advance.

Hot Enough For Ya? Hot Peppers Here

"Sorry, no, that is just not hot enough. May I see the chef?" So said Gran Fran on a visit to a now defunct Asian Fusion retaurant in the Castro, on one of her many visits to the San Francisco familia. Though it didn't happen often, this kind of phrase passed Gran Fran's lips often enough for us to quietly await the chef's appearance, whereupon Gran Fran would make it abunduntly clear how spicy she told the waitperson she wanted her food to be. The chef would debate with her, telling her that there was no way she would be able to handle the full load of spicy that she requested.

But, in the end, the mighty Gran Fran would prevail and the chef would concede defeat, go back to the kitchen, and make her the hottest, spiciest chicken dish she could imagine. He would then stand tableside and witness my mother eat the whole plate, with a bit of watery eyes, but no other huge side affects. After episodes such as this, Gran Fran would leave with a handshake from the chef and accolades from all about her spice-enduring palette.

Back at home, while we were growing up, whenever there was entertaining going on, a nice antipasta spread would appear on the coffee table. The usual suspects were always there: salami, pepperoni, fresh mozarella, Italian bread or homemade focaccia (made from the local Italian baker's pizza dough at our house). My favorite amongst these treats, though, were the freshly fried Italian hot peppers. They are oily, spicy, salty and oh-so-satisfying all at the same time. Nothing tastes better than these on a piece of fresh Italian bread, with a bit of the cooing oil soaked into the bread.

Recently, I asked Gran Fran how old we were before she allowed us to eat the hot peppers. Her recollection is that they were just there, on the table and if you were interested, you could have some. In my mind, I think I was about ten years old when I first tried the peppers. It is unclear to me if I imagined this next part, if maybe it happened to one of my siblings, or if it was in one of the many Italian-American movie food scenes where I may have picked this up. But, I do recall spitting hot peppers across the dining room with them landing splat on the wall. Regardless if this did happen or not, I loved the hot peppers right from the get-go.

Another hazy recollection I have with my love affair with hot peppers, was the fact that while I was pregnant, I decided I had to have these peppers. Now, if you have ever been pregnant, it is safe to say that if you have a yearning for something, the desire to eat that something outweighs whether or not said something is a good idea for your little bambino. If memory serves me right, I recall having a very jumpy baby on the inside, and the feeling that a hole was being burned through my stomach.

But, I also remember being momentarily sated and contented by the familiar flavors and warm aromas of Gran Fran's Hot Peppers.

Hot Peppers

• 1 pound hot peppers, mixed, sliced in 1/4-inch rounds (No habaneros, their taste is too pronounced.)
• 4 cloves garlic, diced, not too small
• 1 cup (yes, one cup!) olive oil
• Generous sprinkling of coarse salt.

1. Place everything in a pan that should hold them in one layer. If you must, as they start cooking, spread them around.

2.  Place pan over low heat. Let them cook undisturbed for about 15 minutes; stir and spread out in pan. Stir  and spread every 15 minutes. Watch closely after about 40 minutes to avoid burning. They should come crisp and tasty with the garlic a nice color and all ready to eat.