Learn to talk like a butcher: You'll eat well, save
A new wave of butcher shops has opened. To make the most of them, a basic understanding of the cuts of meat helps. Recipes: Grilled Pork Belly with Soy-Mirin Glaze, Veal Shank with Shallots and Chanterelles, and Lamb Necks Braised in Wine with Peppers
A pork belly is sliced for grilling. People looking for a good cut of meat trimmed properly, are turning to local butcher shops that are starting to sprout up in neighborhoods after years of absence.
ANDREW SCRIVANI / NYT
Grilled pork belly with soy-mirin glaze.
NEW YORK — Patrick Martins summed it up in a single slab: pork belly.
"That's the cut that people ask for the most," he said. "Evidently they can't find it in their supermarkets."
No, they cannot. And that is just one reason why Martins opened a real butcher shop on the Lower East Side last month.
He's not the only one. Butcher shops, once a vestige, are opening in many New York neighborhoods where buying meat has often been reduced to staring down a sea of plastic-wrapped foam trays. These new stores offer much more. To make the most of them, though, a basic understanding of the butcher's craft is essential.
Buying some pork or most other meats is not as simple or as cheap as picking out an apple. Do not tweet at your friends for advice; consult the butcher.
"Here, you can have a conversation with a human being, and I can tell you that every transaction is different," said Brent Young, one of the butchers at the Meat Hook in Brooklyn. This no-frills workroom in the shadowy rumble of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway goes a long way to dispel the notion that a dedicated butcher is an elitist venue for those times when you want a prime T-bone to impress the in-laws.
How you plan to cook the meat determines the cut. And the quantity for a serving will be based how it will be trimmed and what else you are serving. If the meat you think you want is not available or too expensive, the butcher can offer alternatives.
"We can offer cuts you never see in a supermarket," Young said. "Cheap cuts. Customers on a budget come in asking for ideas, they want other options."
To make the most of the animals, the Meat Hook's butchers went to France for two weeks last spring to learn how butchering is done there and discovered little portions of succulence that could be ferreted out of parts of a steer, like the merlot steak and the oyster steak. (Remember that it was the French who popularized the hanger steak, which now is sometimes sold in better supermarkets.)
For those whose appetites stray beyond steak, a culinary adventure in the way of oxtails, marrow bones, kidneys, pig's ears and trotters starts with the butcher, usually after a phone call in advance. You also need a butcher for some less exotic items like brisket that is fattier and juicier than the more easily found lean first cut.
"Our restaurant features nose-to-tail dining so we break down whole animals," said Christian Pappanicholas, an owner of Cannibal, the new butcher attached to Resto, a meat-centric restaurant in Manhattan. "And if a customer wants to buy certain cuts they've had here to cook at home, like lamb neck, we can sell it."
It's a major turnaround in the way meat has been bought and sold. Some 40 or so years ago, beef was shipped to New York's meatpacking district in the form of whole carcasses, or "rail beef." Then the big Midwestern packing houses started shipping what was called "boxed beef," primal cuts packed in Cryovac. Now, butchers like those at Cannibal are carving whole animals again, and not just for beef.
Joshua and Jessica Applestone, who founded Fleisher's in Kingston, N.Y., even taught butchering to chefs and customers. They just opened a branch in Brooklyn to feed their growing roster of New York City customers.
There are others: Dickson's Farmstand Meats, previously available only online; Marlow & Daughters, a spin-off of the Marlow & Sons restaurant; Tiberio Custom Meats, which has a shop at Sauce; and Japan Premium Beef, specializing in ultra-tender wagyu, cut for Asian recipes.
This phenomenon is not limited to New York City. In other cities, butchers are also opening, including Barbara Lynch's Butcher Shop in Boston, the Local Butcher Shop in Berkeley, Calif., Smoking Goose Meatery in Indianapolis, and Chop Butchery and Charcuterie in Portland, Ore.
DeBragga, once strictly a wholesaler in the meatpacking district, now has a retail store online as well as a new service feature, a telephone hotline for customers so they can discuss the meat before they click the mouse. There are also butchers at some Greenmarkets now, selling meat and poultry from farms in the region.
And it's not just for the fresh pork belly, suddenly in demand thanks to cookbooks, chefs and television. It is also for other cuts of meat like crown roasts of lamb, whole veal shanks, pork cheeks, cross-rib roasts, lamb riblets, beef ribs for the barbecue, sweetbreads, lamb tongues, pork livers and even goat or rabbit that tempt home cooks but are too specialized or unusual for supermarkets. There's a fresh meat counter at Eataly where an order for a whole boned pig for porchetta or a proper Florentine tagliata steak is not an impossible request.
At his new Heritage Meat Shop, Martins can sell pork belly because his company, Heritage Foods USA, buys whole animals and uses everything.
"We're about nose-to-tail," he said. "We buy 200 pigs each week and we sell a lot of it to chefs, but there are cuts they don't particularly buy so we have to make the most of them. Smoked porterhouse pork chops is one of them."
Cue the choucroute recipe. Heritage Meat Shop is one of several latter-day butchers that seeks out breeds of cattle or hogs other than those favored by industrial meat packers. Berkshire pork, for instance, has more fat but more flavor, and the butcher will also have fatback to sell you to line a rich terrine, or skin to fry for cracklings to whet appetites with the margaritas.
These days, veal that is rosy, not ivory, because it comes from pasteured animals and not young calves chained in a box, is increasingly appreciated. The DeBragga website describes where and how the veal was raised.
"We've just started selling veal," said Jake Dickson, of Dickson's Farmstand Meats. "Ethics and quality were the issues. Our veal is more like young beef than old-fashioned veal."
Once you accept humanely raised veal, it's time to consider a number of options that have been largely off some tables for many years. If a solid veal rump roast is going to break the budget, consider a plump, well-trimmed veal neck roast. Or a handsome whole veal shank, a succulent joint of meat that's usually sliced up for osso buco but makes for a presentation worthy of Henry VIII. Try veal "oxtails" or brisket, which are more tender and cook faster than beef.
Or use the breast, and make sure you ask the butcher to bone it for you. Some new customers who have never bought meat where that kind of service is included in the (typically higher) price can discover other benefits. They can arrange to bring in their own herbed breadcrumb and garlic mixture, and the butcher will stuff, roll and tie the roast. How many home cooks can handle a length of butcher's string as deftly, quickly and neatly as the person behind the meat counter?
Getting to know a bona-fide butcher at a bigger food market like Eataly or Fairway, may wind up saving you money. Not only can you explore cheaper but worthwhile cuts, you will get just the amount of meat you need, trimmed just so, instead of settling for some packaged quantity with the attractive pieces layered on top.
Even at Lobel's, a carriage trade butcher for 60 years, customer tastes are changing.
"With the struggling economy people want different options," said Evan Lobel, the fifth-generation butcher who now runs the company. "They want more braising cuts like lamb breast, veal breast and lamb riblets."
A butcher like Lobel's, which prides itself on customer service, will ask how you want your short ribs. There are several options: in chunks across the bone as for flanken, or with longer bones, English-style, which are also good for Texas barbecue and some Korean recipes. Boning short ribs for stew is a tricky job that you can leave to the butcher, who would also be able to slice some beef for Korean bulgogi, paper-thin. For the Argentine stuffed steak, matambre, you need a pocket cut in a whole flank steak. Will your knives and skills take you that far?
When you deal with a butcher, asking for center cut, a particular thickness in something as simple as filet mignon, the amount of fat on a steak, lamb chops to be Frenched and taking home the trimmings to use in some recipe is routine. And unless you happen to own a bandsaw, so is slicing off the chine bone, part of the backbone that's attached to the ribs. Perhaps you would like some of the silver skin peeled off that leg of lamb or whole filet or beef, or your rib roast or rack of veal boned but tied back onto the bones for flavor. A butcher will comply but also advise if you are in doubt. Bring in your recipe and go over it with the butcher — just not at 5 p.m. on a Friday when there's a line out the door.
While the best way to buy fish is to see what looks good in the market that day, it pays to call the butcher at least a day in advance to find out whether a particular cut is available, to ask what else might be suitable and perhaps to place an order.
"We're finding that one of the things we have to do is retrain the customer on how to shop," Fox said. Merely setting foot in a store like Fleisher's as you provision for dinner is a first step.
Adapted from "Seoultown Kitchen" by Debbie Lee (Kyle Books, 2011)
Time: 1 ½ hours plus marinating
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
1 pound skinless pork belly
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup mirin
Sea salt and white pepper
1 cup beef stock
2 dried shiitake mushrooms
¼ cup honey
3 tablespoons Asian sesame oil
1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons cold water
Vegetable oil for coating grill or pan
1 small kabocha squash, seeded, in ½-inch thick slices with skin
2 tablespoons chopped scallions
2 tablespoons roasted, salted sesame seeds
1. Cut pork belly into pieces about 3-inches square. Thinly slice each piece into squares no more than ¼-inch thick. (Partly freezing the pork belly will make it easier to slice.)
2. Combine soy sauce, mirin, salt and pepper to taste in a bowl. Place pork in the bowl, cover and refrigerate 30 minutes but preferably overnight.
3. In a small saucepan, bring stock to a simmer. Add mushrooms, turn off heat and steep 30 minutes. Strain out mushrooms, and save for other use. Add honey and 1 tablespoon sesame oil to the stock. Simmer 10 to 15 minutes, until reduced by half. Whisk in cornstarch mixture and cook a few minutes longer, until thickened. Remove from heat, transfer to a bowl, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
4. Remove pork from refrigerator. Heat a grill or grill pan and brush with vegetable oil. Place pork slices on grill and cook, turning every 4 minutes or so, until well-seared and caramelized at the edges, about 20 minutes total cooking time. Add remaining sesame oil to the marinade, add the squash, set aside 5 minutes, then place on the grill, turning, until cooked through, about 15 minutes.
5. Arrange pork and squash on a platter. Heat glaze and brush on pork and squash. Sprinkle with scallions and sesame seeds and serve.
VEAL SHANK WITH SHALLOTS AND CHANTERELLES
Time: About 3 hours
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
1 whole veal shank, 4 to 4 ½ pounds
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound large shallots, about 12, peeled
3 tablespoons flour
4 large cloves garlic, sliced
12 ounces fresh chanterelles, or other mushrooms, trimmed
1 ½ cups cider, sweet or hard
½ cup veal or beef stock
6 sprigs fresh thyme
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt and ground black pepper
1. Peel at least one layer of membrane from the veal shank. Heat butter in a ovenproof casserole or Dutch oven large enough to hold the veal. Add shallots and brown over medium-high heat. Remove and reserve. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Dust veal with flour and add to casserole. Lightly brown on all sides. Add garlic, mushrooms, cider, stock and thyme. Bring to a simmer, cover and place in oven for 1 hour.
2. Turn veal, add shallots and continue cooking, covered, until veal is tender, about an hour. Transfer veal to a deep serving platter. Put casserole on the stove over medium heat and add lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Spoon shallots, mushrooms and sauce around meat. Carve veal by cutting slices more or less parallel to the bone and serve with sauce and vegetables.
LAMB NECKS BRAISED IN WINE WITH PEPPERS
Time: 3 hours plus marinating
Yield: 4 servings
2 lamb necks, about 4 ½ pounds, each in 4 slices
2 ½ cups dry red wine
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
4 cloves garlic, smashed
Salt and black pepper
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper (hot paprika can be substituted)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
2 red bell peppers, cored, seeded, in ½-inch slices
2 green bell peppers, cored, seeded, in ½-inch slices
1. Place lamb in a heavy sealable plastic bag. Combine wine, 1 tablespoon oil, 2 tablespoons vinegar, rosemary, garlic and salt and pepper to taste in a bowl and add to bag. Seal and refrigerate 3 to 4 hours. (Lamb can be marinated in a bowl, but more wine might be needed.) Remove lamb from marinade. Strain marinade, separately reserving the garlic and rosemary, and the marinade.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a heavy casserole large enough to hold lamb. Add onion, saute on low until softened, and stir in Aleppo pepper, cumin and cinnamon. Add garlic and rosemary leaves (no stems) from the marinade. Add 1 ½ cups of the marinade and boil down until nearly evaporated.
3. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Place lamb in casserole. Add remaining marinade. Cover and cook 2 hours, until tender. Meanwhile, heat remaining oil in a skillet. Add pepper strips and cook, stirring, on high heat until soft and lightly seared. Lower heat, stir in remaining 2 tablespoons vinegar and the honey. Season with salt and pepper, remove from heat and set aside.
4. When lamb is tender, transfer it to a serving platter. Heat sauce on top of stove, stir in tomato paste and season as needed with salt and pepper. Spoon around meat, scatter pepper strips on top and scatter on parsley.
