Steak Night Part 1 – Bone Marrow Rib Eye

Rib eye with bone marrow (6 of 9)We decided to have a themed dinner during the week. Hence, Steak Night was invented. However, there is no point in just cooking some steak. I needed to do something a little different. I got to wondering what I could do to add an additional belt of flavour to some already tasty dry aged rib eye steaks. The first thing to do is to make a tasty sauce using five ingredients – Wine (of course), concentrated beef stock, shallots, salt and pepper.  So what, I hear you say, you’ve made that sauce before. And your’e right. But, what about adding some bone marrow to the mix? Will that give things the hit I think they need?

Side note on good writing: At this stage of any story, a skilled author would start to build some tension. They would sow the seeds of doubt in your mind. Will it work? Can adding some bone marrow really make a difference? Will this cause Conor’s reputation to take a body blow? You get the picture. I’m not a good author. So, I’ll get on with telling you what happened.

Wow! The marrow is fantastic. For clarity (and yes, when it heats, it clarifies) I got the marrow out of the bone using a long spoon and put it directly onto the steak. Here’s a walkthrough.

The first thing to do is to spoon the marrow out of the bone. If this is proving difficult, put the bone in a warm oven for 10 minutes. Then spoon away to your heart’s content.

This is remarkably simple stuff to do.

In the picture above, the cubes are home made, highly concentrated, beef stock. I encourage you to make some and store it in your freezer. It makes a huge difference to sauces and gravies. There is a link here. Season the beef on both sides.

This is almost a gratuitous meat shot. Use plenty of seasoning.

Heat a cast iron pan (skillet) to very hot. rub the meat with a little oil on one side. Place the steaks oiled side down on the pan. Don’t touch it for 4 minutes. Use this time to chop the bone marrow into small pieces. It has the consistency of fat, so prepare for a bit of a mess.

If you want to know how much bone marrow to use for two steaks….

Turn the steaks.

Don’t overcook the steaks. You will regret it.

Sprinkle the steaks with the bone marrow.

This looks a little dodgy at this stage. Don’t fret. The marrow will melt.

The bone marrow will take a couple of minutes to melt into an unctuous liquid that will add great flavour.

Melting bone marrow adds huge flavour.

Turn the steaks and repeat the process. Be careful to not let the steaks overcook.  Let the steaks rest and then serve them with the nice sauce and some potatoes. Delicious.

I will admit that I staged this photo. I normally eat off a plate.

The marrow adds a lovely extra dimension to the steak. I strongly recommend you try it. Don’t bother serving on a board like this. The sauce will go everywhere!

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Latest comments
  • Bone marrow with steak is amazing. For a while my butchers were selling a bone marrow “butter” specifically for steak. It is a commercial product, though I’ve never seen it for sale elsewhere – shame 🙂

      • Bone marrow degrades so quickly without some form of preservation. This may be a case for preserving our traditional butcher shop where you can get a fresh bone sawn fresh for fresh proper bone marrow.
        The flavour and heartiness fresh bone marrow brings to a dish is unreal. More marrow enhanced recipes please. Support your local traditional butcher. It’s important.

  • Looks utterly delicious, Conor. So few people seem to know whatto do with bone marrow these days and it’s such a loss. Cap off to you.

      • On that basis I’m a nutter too as I have a couple of marrow bones lurking in the fridge. Let’s go with trailblazer. 🙂

  • That looks so good and I love all the photos. I would be tempted to just scoff the bone marrow right out of the bone (assuming it was heated through and unctuous first), but that is because I am greedy and often put short term pleasures ahead of far better longer term ones – even if the longer term is only a few minutes away! I did have a lovely snail and bone marrow starter (with a caper, parsley and red onion salad) at Pea Porridge in Bury St Edmunds a few weeks ago – it was utterly heavenly.

  • Well that is my kind of steak night, not being a huge meat eater!!! Brilliant Conor.

  • Your rib eye looks delicious, my old man ordered a rib eye steak for his birthday dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Honolulu. They serve their steak on a 500-degree heated plate but no bone marrow or sauce. Maybe you should open up a restaurant.

  • I’m a bone marrow convert too, but I put my marrow into my stock after roasting the bones. Perhaps I’m wasting a flavour opportunity…

  • This sounds incredible. One of the most memorable meals I’ve had started with fresh from the oven bread covered in bone marrow butter. I don’t even remember the rest of the meal! Time to start annoying my butcher I think.

      • It was delicious. I’m keen to see your bone marrow burger post. Fat is apparently good for you now, very happy days!

      • Recipe for bone marrow butter :
        Roast some split bones for a couple of mins,till the marrow softens, allow to cool. Meanwhile make a beurre noissette, ( butter cooked till nutty brown stage) tip into a metal bowl. Scrape the softened marrow together with the brown butter. Now you can add seasonings etc like black pepper, shallots etc …place your bowl over a bowl of ice , and whisk it until it starts to set . Remove onto cling film, roll in sausage shape and you’ve got it ready to go. Stick in the fridge and slice as needed melted onto your steaks .

  • I absolutely LOVE bone marrow! I cook marrow bones for about 10 minutes, then scoop and eat with a tiny spoon. I don’t do that often, but when I do, I’m in heaven. I am sure the marrow added a whole new dimension to the steak. (And don’t worry about that staged shot, it sure lends a rustic feel to the meal.)

  • Looks and sounds great, Conor. This is a great way of using bone marrow. I’ll have to try something similar.

  • I am also one of those who could and have relished bone marrow on its very own [Mrs Cholesterol: go read something else!!]. But shall try your way with steak tho’ I cannot get your quality: wow, look at the colour! . . . and absolutely love Claire’s snail and marrow starter – that will be the first one attempted , , , why hadn’t I thought of that 🙂 !

  • A little bit of staging now and then never hurt anyone, tops photos Mr B!

  • Omg Conor, if we could get steaks like that here I would use your recipe to make JS very happy (and you know what they say, good food, happy husband and even happier wife, but sadly for now it will have to be the occasional marrow on toast for him. And btw, I do like your plating – so many are totally overdone for my taste.

  • Clever idea. Bone marrow has become big in the US recently, although more as a starter than a garnish with the main course. Really like what you’ve done — good as steak is, sometimes it really needs a flavor boost, and this does the trick. Good post — thanks. –John

  • WOW!! Great idea! Thanks Conor!

  • Aged steak with bone marrow is the biz.

    I love a stew of pork osso bucco and marrow. Stonking good!

  • I have my husband reading your blog now and the first thing he told me was that you were a true wordsmith so you have to take back that part of not being a good author. Once he sees this post, I’m sure he will want to give this steak a try…it looks great.

  • Looks jaw-droppingly good, Conor. And I love that you cut out the literary BS and get straight to the point: the food.

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