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The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating
Roast Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad
To Serve Four
This is the one dish that does not change on the menu at St. John. The marrowbone comes from a calf's leg; ask your butcher to keep some for you. You will need tea-spoons or long thin implements to scrape your marrow out of the bone at the table.
Do you recall eating Raisin Bran for breakfast? The raisin to bran-flake ratio was always a huge anxiety, to a point, sometimes, that one was tempted to add extra raisins, which inevitably resulted in too many raisins, and one lost that pleasure of discovering the occasional sweet chewiness in contrast to the branny crunch. When administering such things as capers, it is very good to remember Raisin Bran.
twelve 3-inch pieces of 1 middle veal marrowbone
a healthy bunch of flatleaf parsley leaves picked from its stems
2 shallots, peeled and very thinly sliced
1 modest handful of capers (extra-fine if possible)
DRESSING
juice of 1 lemon
extra-virgin olive oil
a pinch of sea salt and black pepper
a good supply of toast
coarse sea salt
Put the marrowbone pieces in an ovenproof frying pan and place in a hot 450°F. oven. The roasting process should take about 20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the bone. You are looking for the marrow to be loose and giving, but not melted away, which it will do if left too long (traditionally the ends would be covered to prevent any seepage, but I like the coloring and crispness at the ends).
Meanwhile lightly chop your parsley, just enough to discipline it, mix it with the shallots and capers, and at the last moment, dress the salad.
Here is a dish that should not be completely seasoned before leaving the kitchen, rendering a last-minute seasoning unnecessary by the actual eater; this, especially in the case of coarse sea salt, gives texture and uplift at the moment of eating. My approach is to scrape the marrow from the bone onto the toast and season with coarse sea salt. Then a pinch of parsley salad on top of this and eat. Of course once you have your pile of bones, salad, toast, and salt it is "liberty hall."
Pot Roast Brisket
Both this and the following brisket recipe provide very good leftovers for your hash, or are excellent in sandwiches, or simply cold, thinly sliced, with Green Sauce or Horseradish Sauce. You can salt the brisket yourself for 5 days in a brine or if you don't want to make it yourself, you can buy salted brisket from the butcher.
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
3 onions, peeled and chopped
2 leeks cleaned, peeled and chopped
2 whole heads of garlic, skin on
a bundle of fresh herbs tied together
10 black peppercorns
4 1/4 to 4 1/2 pound piece of brisket of beef
1 quart unsalted chicken stock
2 cups red wine (about 16 ounces)
In a deep roasting pan, just a bit bigger than your beef, lay your chopped vegetables, garlic, herbs, and peppercorns onto which nestle your brisket. Pour the stock and wine over it. You are looking for an iceberg effect: part of the beef is not covered but we know there is a lot more submerged in the stock. Cover with aluminum foil. Put into a medium oven for 3 hours, until thoroughly giving but not collapsing (keep an eye on it; do not let it cook too fast, and turn the oven down if this is the case).
Then slice and eat it, ladling a little of the juice over the meat (keep the remaining juice, which makes a very good base for soup). Serve with Horseradish Sauce.
The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating. Copyright © by Fergus Henderson. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
