This recipe caught my eye as I was translating the soups section, because it sounded so unusual. Last week I made a large pot of rich beef broth, and had broth and marrow from the bones on hand – a perfect opportunity to try it out.
Of course I wasn’t sure at all what it would be like, or if anyone in my family would eat it for dinner, so I made it as a start to an already larger meal just in case it wasn’t popular.
It was simple, easy to prepare, and was useful in that it requires somewhat stale bread to crumble – something else we had on hand.
And it turned out not only to be popular, but everyone was fighting over the dumplings!
You can find good-quality grassfed marrow bones locally from Full Circle Farm.
1 /12 – 2 cups of stale bread crumbs (how much bread makes this depends on the bread and the shape and size of the loaf – I doubled this recipe for my large family, and it used about half a loaf of the bread we had on hand)
1 egg
a pinch of fine salt
1 quart of broth, warmed
About 4 tablespoons of beef bone marrow
1. Use a grater to grate the stale bread into bread crumbs. Put the bread crumbs into a bowl.
2. Separate the egg, and beat the yolk with a pinch of fine salt. Mix into the bread crumbs, until it becomes a very stiff dough. Press the dough down into a flat shape in the bottom of the bowl.
3. In a small sauce pan, melt the bone marrow, and pour over the flattened dough. Knead to incorporate the bone marrow. Divide the dough into small pieces, and roll them to give them a cylindrical shape.
4. In another small sauce pan, boil about a cup of the broth. Add the dumplings when the broth is boiling and cook until they look plump (about 12 minutes). Then add the rest of the broth (or more if you want a more brothy soup). Taste and adjust the saltiness if necessary.
Notes: I also used some sliced green onion and a sprinkle of black pepper for serving.
{My grandmother, Claudia Meraud, was born in Nice, France. She immigrated to the US after meeting my grandfather while he was stationed there as a US soldier in WW II. We spent several summers together, just the two of us, living with her sister in Nice. She passed along to me an old French cookbook titled title is La Cuisine: Guide Practique De La Ménagère by R. Blondeau, Chef de Cuisine. It originally belonged to my great-grandmother, Lucie Thomas, who was a native of St. Marie-aux-Mines in Alsace.
This cookbook was published in the 1930’s, and was written as a practical guide for a household cook before the days of the fridge and the food processor. The recipes are delicious, practical, and (of course) packed with good traditional nutrition.
I am creating translated versions of these antique recipes, re-written for the modern cook, and tested with home-grown and seasonal food.}
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 