Tips on what to buy at the butchers?

poppy-glos · 20 October 2012 at 9:35PM

I went to the butchers for beef skirt last week, after doing some online research. I bought quite a few things and as they cut it for me, I didn't see or ask the price per kg. ouch, when I got home I read the receipt, over £12 a kg for skirt! The stew was delish, but back to supermarket meat for a while for me.....

Lacemaker · 20 October 2012 at 11:05PM

We have a brilliant butcher, he knows his customers by their Christian name, but everyone calls him"Mr. Woods", such is the level of respect.Currently 12 chicken breasts from him are £15 , but such are their size that we only us three to make a dish rather than using six of Al&i's .His whole chickens look like trussed chickens used to, not all shiny and pumped up with water. We had HM burgers tonight, made with his mince, no shrinkage whatsoever. My Mum always said, " Cheap is dear", and personally I prefer to get my meat from a butcher, a qualified tradesman, and buy less if necessary, or be more creative, than be disappointed with inferior quality.

jeanniebeanie_2 · 21 October 2012 at 8:15AM

Unfortunately, our good local butcher has disappeared now leaving what I call a "meat shop" which sells trays of pre marinaded bulk buys that to me look worse than the supermarket offerings.

We do, however have a Saturday farmer's market and the meat stall there, whilst not cheap, is run by a knowledgable friendly farming family so we tend to eat less, better quality meat now and support our local producer. He is also happy to advise on cooking and often has cooked tasters and sometimes even a second hot roast stall. We therefore just see what he has on offer - or what he has left if we get there late!

Suffolk_lass · 21 October 2012 at 9:16AM

Other cheaper cuts (taken from my old Housecraft book from schooldays) are:

1. Chicken thighs instead of breast - great in casserole or curry

2. Lamb shoulder instead of leg for roast, best end of neck or breast for stew (with pearl barley and lots of root veg - you need to use plenty of stock and skim off the fat as it renders out imho), liver, kidneys, hearts stuffed as above (used to braise shanks but they have shot up since celeb chefs started using them)

3. Beef - for stewing; buttock steak (top of the back leg), flank (the undercarriage towards the back of the animal), chuck, skirt, clod (that's the front lower chest/top leg) oxtail (fantastic flavour, cooked long slow and low temperature so perfect in your slow cooker). Kidney (ox kidney) in steak and kidney pudding. Brisket or silverside are good for small slow-cooked joints.

4. Pork - shoulder is cheaper than leg for roasting (and ask the butcher for some crackling if it isn't tied on) - also belly joint (or strips for boneless ribs). Lots of different chops are available bone-in instead of boned out. Also pig liver (quite a strong flavour and goes floury-textured if over-cooked) is not to my taste but some like it.

5. Rabbit (as others have said) - I recommend the flavour and it is cheap, low fat and flavoursome but I hate boning so ask your butcher to do this (takes him five minutes and you pay by the animal being weighed before the boning out) - you could ask for the boned carcass for stocks and soups too

6. Hocks - ham usually but my butcher sells cooked pork too - these are the remnants of a bone-in joint that is hand or machine carved and with a small paring knife I can get a week's worth of ham for sandwiches plus boiled for the pickings to make soup with veg. If he sells them your butcher should make sure there is plenty of meat on to make them worthwhile.

You can ask for stock bones too which when boiled in water will let you pick off the meat closest to the bone.

I know you said your partner doesn't like chicken leg meat but if I roast a chicken and pull all the cold meat off the carcass, I remove the skin, pull it apart and make curry or pie with it and nobody notices...

HTH
SL

spike7451 · 21 October 2012 at 9:27AM

Second the chicken thighs!I have a bag of Sainsbobs basics frozen chicken portions (around £4.00 for a huge bag that takes up most of a drawer in my freezer) as they're so handy for making curries,southern fried chicken ect.In fact,aside from the roast chicken I buy above,I rarely buy any other type of chicken.
My butcher makes awesome pork & apple burgers,has a good veriety of sausages & sells Ulster Pasties as well,all locally made & sourced.

Pasties – this comforting mixture of sausage meat, onions, mashed potato is shaped like a burger, and always spiced with loads and loads of black pepper. You can order them plain, battered (the chip shop favourite) or coated with golden breadcrumbs.

ajdj · 21 October 2012 at 11:03AM

Well, it didn't quite go as well as I anticipated. Thanks for the tips though

The 10 chicken breasts were squashed into a 6" square polystyrene tray wrapped with cling film. They looked ok, but presented that way was difficult to see how big they were. OH turned her nose up and insisted that we should buy free range chicken (what we normally buy). A quick chat with the butcher and he doesn't offer free range so we didn't buy any chicken.

We did buy 385g of diced turkey breast for OH to make a turkey and leek pie in the week and I got a small amount of Brussels pât! to try. Only spent £3 odd so it was reasonably priced.

We checked out the other 2 butchers on the same street. The one opposite was much the same (no free range either) and the other one had loads of pre-packaged stuff that looked poor quality.

We decided that as we have a full freezer to use up some of that stuff this week. Did buy a Gammon joint on offer in Lidl though (£3.99 for 1.2kg), going to have a go at that in the slow cooker at some point.

spike7451 · 21 October 2012 at 11:12AM

Ohhh Gammon in cola...

YUMMY!

Tiglath · 21 October 2012 at 11:37AM

I'm doing the Lidl gammon joint at the moment with tomato puree, maple syrup, brown sugar, garlic, mustard, stock, onions and apple slices. It's smelling fabulous, I have to say.