Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I have been wanting to try this recipe for a while now but I first wanted to know a few things like where to get it? Would the butcher's at Whole Food be able to get it for me or is this more of a specialty butcher's item? Also how do I know I am getting good quality or fresh bone marrow? Also are there any preparation tips (or variations) one could give me that may not be dispelled in the recipe? Thanks!

The taste of bone marrow is as much about the texture as the flavour. The texture is unctuous and not dissimilar to a soft scrambled egg with the melt in the mouth that you get from foie gras that has been pan fried.

The flavour is rich and reminds me of perfect egg yolks accessed via toasted buttered soldiers. With a meatiness and depth of flavour you get from the fat from round a well seared sirloin.

I use regular beef shin bones from the butcher - they pretty much give them away in the UK.

A real treat on toast with good flaky salt and perhaps a little chopped parsley and capers – My advice is to avoid the shallots/onions I think they hide the marrow flavour too much.

I figure if it tastes good and doesn't make me throw up I really don't care what they call it.

I don't eat any fish that hasn't been cooked or frozen solid, unless I caught it myself, and even then I cook that sucker. I have caught plenty of fish with worms in them. They don't do you any harm, it is said, but I don't want to test it and find that I have a six foot worm in my gut.

As far as sushi goes, if you promise me your wares have been frozen hard, I will eat your sushi, if it is fresh I would rather drive a motorcycle at 130mph through traffic rather than take my chances with you. Fish are full of parasites and how do you kill parasites? You freeze them or you burn them.

Trusting someone to pluck out the worms is the height of idiocy.

I dont understand why people are actually surprised. I think it's funny that people with more money than taste are being ripped off. Yet another good reason to forget the trends and eat what you like.

My family has always eaten them in a tofu 'salad' - cubed silken tofu, cubed pidan, a handful of spring onion and pork floss, topped with a little soy sauce and sesame oil. I remember as a kid being a bit leery of the way it looked, but having grown up with the taste, I love how creamy and rich it tastes, and it provides a good contrast to the other ingredients in the dish (sometimes I still cringe a bit looking at it). I don't think I've ever noticed a smell, however.

if it's your first time to try it i'd have to agree with some of the posteres here: try it with congee.. lessens the shock to your tastebuds.. ;p

with regard to the egg tasting like [blue] cheese.. i'd have to disagree.. this has a more musky(?), rather than moldy, flavor..

it also goes well with instant noodles.. ^_^

I've had rattlesnake. I did not find it particularly adventurous. But if it is for you, then yeah, this may be a bit outside of your palette.

If you do want to try it, it's probably a lot easier to start out with it chopped into congee.

I hate to be a born in a tiny Midwest town and never gotten off the continent girl but ok I am. I thought this was a Jell-O type thing with a kiwi. I swear that is what it looks like until you really look at it and scroll down. I will eat nearly anything including rattlesnake and I love sushi but this item scares me. I love to learn about new things but I can smell it when I look at the picture and it does not smell good:) so thank you brave explorer of everything for going where I fear to tread but want to read.

one of my favourite dim sum food. century egg porridge. *yum* and also when i'm lazy, steam egg with quartered century eggs - eat it with steamed white rice... comfort food.

but i agree, it doesn't taste like cheese.

I beg to differ, friends. Living in Taiwan 20 years ago, after having eyed them warily for some time, I tried pidan for the first time, and the very first thing that came to mind was blue cheese. In my experience, it's about the only thing in Chinese cuisine that's truly evocative of any kind of cheese. Not that I'd want to spread it on a cracker. But I've come to love them. It should be mentioned too that "pidan" translates into something like "leather egg," an interesting way of describing them; in Taiwan, in my experience, this is what they're almost always called.

Eclectic: ABSOLUTELY El Bulli, for an out-of-this-different-world experience.
Picturesque: Any Taverna in the Greek Islands, overlooking the Aegean.
Fancy: Del Posto NY) or Chez Panisse(CA) or Vetri (PA)
Sexy: Buddakan
Sweet: Chez Angelina Paris...Hot Chocolate
Homey: The Pantry, downtown L.A. (Huge breakfast! Potatoes!)
Fishy: Joe's Stone Crab, Miami
To the Point: Pink's in L.A., although Great Burger (PA)is giving them a run with the Jersey style ripper dogs smothered in chili.

Oh, I guess I just like to eat!