Truffled Bone Marrow Quenelles

From Wikipedia: A quenelle is mixture of creamed fish, chicken, or meat, sometimes combined with breadcrumbs, with a light egg binding It is usually poached.

I’ve had a recipe for bone marrow dumplings in a cookbook, The Beef Edition of Time/Life's the good cook series, which are added as a garnish on top of fresh corned beef. I’ve had this cookbook for years and when I finally decided to do the recipe, the dumplings had trouble keeping its shape when poached. Further research on the Internet, I found a recipe and several attempts and adjustments, I finally came up with my own version.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I discovered the heavenly combination of truffle and bone marrow at Pepato where the whole bone is served with garnish on the side sea salt and truffle sauce. I also found this post by Market Manila very useful wherein the sliced bone marrow is soaked in a brine solution (water and sea salt) for 24 hours. In my past usage of bone marrow, I had a few instances wherein the blood would give a slight ‘langsa’ and a bit of an aftertaste. This brine solution process removes the blood and the impurities of the bone marrow giving it a cleaner taste.

This quenelle is added to beef consommé giving an added dimension to an otherwise plain clear soup. I then garnish the consommé with some fine chives. One time, I had some leftover quenelles and coated them with egg white and breadcrumbs then deep-fried them. The result: crunchy texture on the outside and divine soft fatty orgasmic goodness inside.

100 grams beef bone marrow

1 tbsp unsalted butter

½ cup dry white bread crumbs

1 tbsp cornstarch

½ tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley

2 egg yolks

1 tsp truffle sauce (salsa tartufata)

sea salt and pepper

In a mixing bowl, crumble and break apart the marrow and butter.

Mix in all the other ingredients until it becomes a dough.

Using two spoons, shape them into oval balls around an inch in width. Place the quenelles in the refrigerator for 15 to 20 minutes.

Poach the quenelles in lightly salted boiling water. As the quenelles rise up to the surface, continue poaching for 2 more minutes.

Drain and set aside.