South London butchers

[Loupylou]

Kennedys .RIP. innit...

Just read this from that Natural farms site:

" After slaughter, the breakdown of oxygen in the blood produces lactic acid and it is this which tenderises meat, adding flavour in the process. If an animal is stressed at the time of slaughter, then the oxygen in the blood is used by the muscles beforehand and lactic acid is not formed in the same quantities.

It takes time for lactic acid to tenderise meat and indeed for gradual water loss to further concentrate the essential flavour developed.

Commercial restraints on supermarkets mean they simply do not hang their meat for long enough - it is on the shelves as quickly as possible after slaughter.

This results in the meat being tough and tasteless in comparison to meat that has been properly hung."

Very intresting...

My mum used to sell meat (which was ordered by her customers & brought by the people that reared it to her shop), from a farm in the New Forest - this was back in the mid-late 80s, & I was explained that by the farmers. They used to let their herds of cattle roam about the forest etc, & they explained why meat is so tough - because of the way the animals are slaughtered and that they don't get hung for long enough. So yes that's absolutely the case. The difference between meat from any of these decent butchers mentioned here, & what's dished up in supermarkets, is very noticeable.
Plus if you go to these butchers, you will be supporting small businesses, which sometimes you have to go out of your way to do, but is well worth it

 

[sir.clip]

I like to let my meat hang...

 

[ViolentPanda]

TBH popularity ain't a good guarantee of quality - you could probably do a roaring trade in rip off Boyzone CDs at some markets for example. There's something about crowds and apparent bargains that makes people lose their critical edge - take those lock in shops that encourage people to bid for random parcels of goods, on the hope that they'll get some kind of bargain video camera/console/tv.

I'm just intrigued how an animal can be portioned up so cheaply, especially one that's not particularly suitable for intensive farming techniques and cost cutting like lambs. It doesn't seem to add up in my head, although someone's welcome to give me some insight.

I asked my dad (former Smithfield meat-chopper and retail butcher among other things) about this, and his take is that a lot of sunday market stalls are able to sell cheap, good quality meat because the produce is usually cleared in lots saturday afternoon/evening by the large meat-packaging companies and wholesalers, where they've overstocked. It's not "on the turn", but retail butchers wouldn't (mostly) want to pay full price for it as "fresh" on monday.
That said, some of the market meat-traders are hooked up to their own stock-rearers and slaughterers.

 

[tarannau]

That's an interesting take on it VP - cheers.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I imagine people who buy meat from stalls like this lack cash and know no better. Otherwise they wouldn't be buying it.

Really?

That's rather snobbish of you, to make such an assumption.

I used to buy all my meat from a stall trader on Battersea high street. If he didn't sell what you wanted he'd buy it in for the next time he'd be trading there, if you wanted, and his silverside, rib roasts and his chickens were some of the nicest I've tasted (and I used to shop at Doves before then).

 

[Orang Utan]

Really?

That's rather snobbish of you, to make such an assumption.

I used to buy all my meat from a stall trader on Battersea high street. If he didn't sell what you wanted he'd buy it in for the next time he'd be trading there, if you wanted, and his silverside, rib roasts and his chickens were some of the nicest I've tasted (and I used to shop at Doves before then).

Guilty

 

[ViolentPanda]

That's an interesting take on it VP - cheers.

I always used to wonder about it myself, to be frank. That's why I asked him.

Nowadays, my dad only buys "speciality" stuff from retail butcher shops, everything else comes from their local covered market, where the same couple of traders have sold there on market days for about 50 years.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Guilty

Just always keep in mind that shop doesn't always = quality.

I mean, we've all suffered the horror that is Dewhursts, haven't we?

 

[Orang Utan]

It wasn't the stall, it was the price

 

[Donna Ferentes]

 

[co-op]

What sort of thing is good to make with salted pork and pork belly? I rarely cook pork.

The ONLY way to cookbelly of pork is really really REALLY slowly. Don't cook it when you get home - save it for the w/e or when you can attend to it over a good half-day.

It should come with a nice thick bit of fat and skin - make sure the butchers scores the skin for you (he should offer) - just a crisscrossing to make the crackling easier to break up.

I roast it - or basically bake it - in a casserole dish, the sort of oval thing you might make a pie in. I get a piece of belly about the same size as the dish and cut it to fit the oval and try and seal the dish with the pork skin uppermost so that there isn't really a gap round the edge of the dish, shove the pork in - dunno if I've explained that very well. (oil the dish first so it doesn't stick to the edge)

Anyway - underneath chuck some lightly chopped onions + some sage and rosemary. Put in the oven at a seriously low temperature - I have a setting "S" which is below Gas Mk1 and that's what I use. Now go away for about 5 hours! (actually check after 4, for reasons I don't understand cooking times vary considerably with slow cooking, although as it's so slow a half hour here or there doesn't spoil anything). I have left one once for about 6 hours and it was fine.

The meaty part of the pork will have kind of steamed in the enclosed space in the dish below the skin. The fat will have run down through the meat, moistening it and gathering in the bottom where it is now ready for gravy-fying. Meanwhile the skin will have got gradually drier and crispier. I do find that full-on crackling doesn't always appear this way, but the answer is simple; as you take the joint out, whack the oven up to super-hot, gently lift the not-crackling-enough crackling off the joint (you might need to just slide a knife in and waggle from side to side, but it'll be so tender this is easy-peasy. It'll lift off in one piece. Whack the separated crackling back in the now roaring oven and it'll turn into the most awesome crackling ever - with oozy fat and bits of meat hanging off it on the bottom - in about 5-10 minutes ie usually about the time it'll take you to carve up the meat and dish out the veg and get yer gravy going...


Magic.

Cooking pork quickly should be banned, when I think of all those dry pork "roasts" I've eaten... Yuk

 

[Winot]

Another option is to stew it in stock with ginger/soy sauce/star anise for a few hours then serve with spring onions and noodles (Hugh F-W has a recipe in his Meat book and there is a very similar one in Fuchsia Dunlop's Sichuan book). Dee-lish.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It wasn't the stall, it was the price

If you buy it by the lot and you don't have shop overheads to worry about...

 

[tarannau]

Very nicely said co-op. Almost salivatingly good in fact.

Belly pork's seems to be growing in cheffy popularity, but it's always been comparatively cheap cut that's full of flavour and texture.

You can buy belly pork strips from Tescos, which would probably just about suffice for a winot type stewing. But a decent butcher should be able to provide a hefty chunk of beautifully layered fat and meat - places like Dove's often leave a couple of the end ribs in for added succulence.

 

[Bob]

Ms T - I can guarantee you that Mrs Bob will be very disappointed that you're not going to the Portuguese (O Talho?) at the top end of Atlantic road. The main butcher guy there is great.

 

[Ms T]

Ms T - I can guarantee you that Mrs Bob will be very disappointed that you're not going to the Portuguese (O Talho?) at the top end of Atlantic road. The main butcher guy there is great.

You forget I have been living in Brixton since God was a boy, and I have been there several times. However, it doesn't do a lot of the cuts of meat that I want.

 

[Choc]

we bought a lovely looking pheasant today from a farmers market on telegraph hill. i believe the guy shot it himself in the wild. at least that is what he claimes..!

i would like it to be pot-roasted. my partner has never done that before. has anyone got any hints?

 

[Orang Utan]

Just had a quick look in Slater's Appetite: Rub salt, pepper and olive oil on the birds. Fry some pancetta cubes or lardons in the bottom of the pot, stick the bird in, and colour them on each side, add two stalks of chopped celery, then add two glasses of madeira, bring to boil, bung lie on, stick in hot oven for 45 minutes. Take out. Rest for 15 minutes.

 

[Choc]

THANKS OU!

thought it might need cooking for 4 hours or so...will do a little internet search as well.

 

[aneta]

Hello Ms T.

I found your post, and I would really like to find out which butchers you are talking about that will be closing down...
I am a student film producer and looking for a location of butchers for my film which will shoot end of March so your favourite place could be ideal for me...
I understand your grief but I hope you will still let me know the name or address of this place!
Thanks a lot,
Aneta

 

[Roadkill]

Belly pork's seems to be growing in cheffy popularity, but it's always been comparatively cheap cut that's full of flavour and texture.

You can buy belly pork strips from Tescos, which would probably just about suffice for a winot type stewing. But a decent butcher should be able to provide a hefty chunk of beautifully layered fat and meat - places like Dove's often leave a couple of the end ribs in for added succulence.

Mmm, belly pork.

This isn't wholly relevant to a Brixton forum thread, but since it's titled South London butchers I'll give a quick mention of two round my way. Dring's, on Royal Hill in Greenwich, is rather expensive but exceptionally good. The butcher a couple of doors up from Blackheath railway station is also very good - slightly scruffy-looking shop, complete with sides of pork hanging up in the window (a rare sight these days), but everything I've had from there has been superb.