Bone Marrow

Know this

This is the restaurant course people assume is complicated, and it is a hot oven and a spoon. Marrow bones are one of the cheapest things at any butcher counter because most people walk past them. Ask for canoe cut, split lengthwise, not the cross-cut rounds. Canoe cut gives you a long open trough you can actually get a spoon into, and most butchers will do it while you wait for nothing. Chef secret: soak them. Twelve to twenty four hours in cold salted water, changing it two or three times, pulls the blood out and leaves the marrow ivory white instead of grey and mottled. It is the only step between homemade and restaurant, and it is entirely unattended.

Cook

450°F, fifteen to twenty minutes, until the marrow is soft and bubbling but before it renders out into the pan. That window is the whole game. Pull it early rather than late.

Season

Any time, but it is cold weather food and it knows it.

Best pairings

parsley · shallot · caper · lemon · sourdough · flaky salt

Also worth trying: red wine, garlic, thyme, black pepper, radish, gremolata, anchovy, steak, bordelaise, watercress.

Recommended wine