Cooking with Bone Marrow, My New Secret Weapon of Awesomesauce Flavor
A few days ago I went on a big grocery run to stock up on meat and veggies to get me through a busy week of product work. Because it is winter, I have been craving home-cookin-comfort-food, especially stews. Generally, I throw some chorizo or Italian sausage in stews to add some flavor, but I have been on the lookout for less processed alternatives. An old favorite that I have not used in awhile to add a lot of flavor is a beef marrow bone.
Monday night I made a stew with a marrow bone that was so good I had to do something in the same theme again and document it.
Today, I picked up a bunch of marrow bones from the butcher at Whole Foods and threw them in the freezer. Here is how I made the beef stew.
Sautee 3 onions in a teaspoon of butter in a pressure cooker (don’t put the lid on yet).
Add a marrow bone chopped garlic 1 chopped yellow pepper 1 chopped orange pepper 1 habenero pepper ¼ cup red wine 1 chopped carrot 1 bag frozen broccoli 1 bag frozen okra 1 chopped celery stalk Salt, black pepper, chili powder, cumin (a pinch or two of each) 1 large can diced tomatoes ½ lb beef cubes (chuck or bottom round)
Put the lid on the pressure cooker and let it cook for ½ hour or so. You know you are done when you check the bone and the marrow has liquified and seeped into the broth.
There is good reason behind the phrase “the marrow of life.”
Something new I tried today that I plan on continuing to do in the future: invite a few friends from my chat buddy list or Twitter stream to dinner for an ad hoc supper convo. This works especially well in NYC because (1) I plan to cook more than a day in advance (2) New Yorkers do not really like committing an evening a week in advance, so this is a low pressure way to send invites—people do not feel bad about saying no because notice is short, and you can basically just go down a list until you have enough yes replies to consume all of the food you have cooked.