Buying from a butcher

Penelope_Penguin

Little_Miss_Naughty wrote: »

First trip to a local butcher planned for tomorrow and it does feel good to be supporting a local business too.

Well done :T Speak to your butcher, and if s/he can see that you're interested in what you're buying, and have some knowledge, you're more likely to get good service

I'll add thsi to the exsiting thread to give you more ideas.

Lewby

It doesn't take that much to make him happy .... just meat on his plate for his evening meal! As I try to clear our debts I have been utilising all of the good advice on this site including menu planning, shopping to the list, storecupboard meals, stretching a chicken as far as you can, adding lentils to mince, sliding the odd vegetarian meal in .... and because meat is so expensive and I don't eat red meat those veggie meals have become more and more often.

Taking the advice on here I went to my local butchers to see what he had to offer as the supermarket meat just seems so expensive and I have come back so laden with meat my husband thinks it's his birthday!!!

I took £40 from my monthly food budget and have managed to get;

3 x packs of belly pork slices
4 x packs of steak mince
4 x packs of lamb mince (love it for shepherds pie)
6 x packs of lovely sausages (inc Cumberland and pork & black pudding)
2 x packs of braising steak
1 x pork joint

Looking at it on the side before it gets frozen, it looks like so much meat .... no wonder hubby is happy and it looks like such better quality than I get from the supermarket.

Thanks for advice ..... from not so DFW or OS hubby!

BitterAndTwisted

What crafty plans do you have for the belly-pork slices? My Ma used to serve us belly-pork often when we were kids, mostly roasted.

Lewby

He loves them just simply roasted too but sometimes he'll spice them up with some honey, mustard and soy sauce .... apparently it's lovely but I'll take his word for it. He's just happy to sit and eat a whole plate full just on their own!

I had no idea really that meat was such an important part of his life .... until I stopped feeding it to him because of my budgeting!! Lol.

sophistica

Lewby - how did you do that? Did you say, "I have £40 what can I have?" or did you select £40 worth from the display? we have a local butcher but I think it is really expensive...I will look.

scaredy_cat

belly slices are lovely in a casserole with mushrooms and apple. The slow cooking makes them fall apart.

Pink.

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

What crafty plans do you have for the belly-pork slices? My Ma used to serve us belly-pork often when we were kids, mostly roasted.

Hi BitterAndTwisted,

This thread has good advice on cooking pork belly:

Pork Belly?

Pink

Lewby

sophistica wrote: »

Lewby - how did you do that? Did you say, "I have £40 what can I have?" or did you select £40 worth from the display? we have a local butcher but I think it is really expensive...I will look.

Hi there. It was a combination of both really. I started looking at the meat and chatting to the butcher about what was really good value at the moment as our budget is tight and I am trying to keep my hubby happy by letting him have meat on a more regular basis but I find veggie meals are so much more cost effective. I also said that I had been so disappointed by the quality of what was in the supermarkets and that had also led to us eating less meat.

He said that he usually had some great deals and asked me what sort of things I was looking for. I said I didn't mind as long a hubby thought it was meat I told him I was looking to spend about £40 (which he seemed pleased with as people usually go in for only a few pounds worth of meat) and he said 'lets see what we can do!'.

I suppose it was a mixture of sweet talk and sympathy but I came away hardly able to carry the meat and told him I'd be telling my friends to come and see him. Worth a try x

BitterAndTwisted

Next time he has pork-belly see if he can give it to you as a whole flat piece. Sprinkle it with mixed dried fruit, roll it up like a Swiss Roll, tie it up with string and then roast it. To serve, cut it into slices. It's God-like, I promise you.

Those slices sound like they're crying out to be casseroled in sweet and sour sauce. If not, most definitely something Chinese

JulieGeorgiana

Sophistica - I find that the 'butchers' near us is so over priced... but when I found my farm shop they were so good I can see that I would get the above at about the same cost. You have to be careful, because some butchers pretend to be good value but are not.

Go to a few in the area and look at what they sell, how big they are, look at the prices lb for lb. And if you ask how much 500g of mince costs and they say 'No one uses kg, you mean lb of mince' then run... because any butcher worth his salt can work in both units!