Chicken breasts and Shin of Beef

We’ve not long come back from doing the main food shopping for the week and I find myself unaccountably pleased at our purchases made from the local butcher.

Not the shin I bought - but shin nonetheless

Apart from the fact that he couldn’t supply us with a rabbit (although he did recommend a place that could – we’ll pop in there on Friday), we picked up another five chicken breasts for £5, together with 600g of Shin of Beef for a beef stew tomorrow, which cost us the princely sum of £2.something (neither of us can quite remember how many pence the “something” represents), but either way, it’s a fabulous price for some “real” beef.  I say “real” beef, because somehow beef bought from a supermarket just doesn’t feel “real”.  You have no idea how old it is, nor do you know which bit of the cow you’ve got.  I also wonder, sometimes, whether it’s been previously frozen and they’re just not saying.

It’s silly, I know, but I got all nervous about going to the butcher.  Just in case the prices turn out to be horrendously more expensive than the supermarket, or I get asked questions that I’ve no answer to and so wind up looking like a fool.  Lord knows, I should be used to looking like a fool – it happens that often, but it never sits comfortably with me.  However, all was well and we had a nice little chat with him while he was serving us – all about ~shrug~ cutting the grass.

I think all that is why I feel so happy about it.  I’ve always wanted to find a local butcher that I could go to and feel comfortable about asking questions, plus I could have a little chat with, just like two human beings.  I remember my Nanna would shop like that – and it’s so much nicer than the impersonal drifting around your local supermarket.  Mind you, having said that, we’re such a regular feature at our supermarket that the Security staff (who keep the keys for the disabled buggies) are chatting, we’ve established our favourite checkout lady who recognises us every week, I exchange a few words with some of the shelf-fillers, plus some of the other shoppers are just as regular as we are – and have started saying hello back to me when I acknowledge them.  It all helps to make you feel at home in a place, I find.

Not perfect : but getting there!

Anyway, beside all that, last week was momentous on two counts.  Firstly, I made a Toad in the Hole – and you all know what troubles I’ve had over Yorkshire Pudding.  Well, it wasn’t perfect, but it was by far the best Toad that I’ve ever made.  The ends of the sausages got a bit frizzled, but with the @FoodieFellow (the Guerilla Griller) tip to reduce the temperature, the next one could well be that perfect toad.

Looks nice - but what could it be?

The other momentous occasion was that I devised my own recipe from scratch – without using someone else’s recipe as a base and adapting it to my own requirements.  I won’t say too much about it here, as it’ll spoil the blog post about it.  Everyone enjoyed the meal, although there were things that could have been improved upon and which I’ll take into account the next time.  Just the sheer fact that there’s likely to be a next time, is quite a significant improvement in my cooking.

I see that time is marching on towards lunchtime, so it’s time to go and make some Ramen noodles – which are my current passion.  I love that I can use up veggies and that they take seconds to cook (or warm up, in some instances), yet I get a lovely bowl of warming soup piled high with yummy noodles.  I even had to buy some chopsticks so that I could do it properly.  Yes, I do get it all down my front, but isn’t that part of the fun of eating noodles?

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The best thing I ate this Christmas : Rib of Beef

I referred, somewhat tantalisingly, to buying a piece of Beef from our local butcher to have as extra ammunition on Boxing Day.

Well, this piece of bone-in Rib of Beef deserves its own mention such was its degree of yumtiousness.  Oh, and yes, "yumtiousness" is a word - I've just declared it so.

We wandered into Spring Fields Butchers to have a bit of a peep at their beef and was so side-tracked by the t.v. celebrity who followed us in (and whose name I am STILL scratching around for, annoyingly) that I wound up buying a 1.5kg piece of bone-in Rib.

Just how nice does that look?  On the negative side, it was perhaps a little young as it could have been a bit darker, but then I was side-tracked trying to whisper out of the corner of my mouth to Chillibob "famous person behind you!".

As a piece of mouth-wateringly beefy beef, it wins.  So majorly lovely was it, that I didn't get beyond taking a photograph of it in the pan being seared on all sides - or the sides that would fit in the pan, anyway.

Having roasted it, I carved it and froze it (weep - sacrilege! But necessary) for use on Boxing Day - of which, more later!

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A butcher - at last!

Ever since we first moved into this County (from Kent), nearly three years ago, I've had it in mind to find a local butcher to use regularly instead of keep buying sub-standard meat from the supermarket.

Up until now, this hasn't managed to happen (for one reason or another).  However, this morning we visited the butcher that Chef uses at work - who just happens to be en-route to Asda.

We caught Spring Fields Butchers on the Herbert Avenue, Parkstone, Poole, before they'd managed to get their complete display out into the cabinets, but oh golly, what mouthwatering goodies they had already on display.  Beautiful dark red Sirloin steaks, Wild Boar sausages, lamb shanks, plus your regular mince, chicken breasts etc.

I was particularly after two lamb's kidneys to go in the Lancashire Hotpot we're having on Sunday and was fairly gobsmacked to be charged 35p for them both.  I'd been envisaging paying a lot more than that!  While we were there, we indulged in four of their pork sausages - as the worth of a butcher can often be found in his sausages!

Having got them home and unwrapped them, immediately you could smell that they were different to supermarket sausages.  They smelled lovely - all herby and peppery and porky.  Better than a supermarket sausage - which generally smells of nothing.

When cooked, they were even better - although hubby had a few areas of disappointment in them.  I loved their crisp skins and the flavour that was somewhere between pork sausage and pork sausagemeat stuffing with a lovely initial hit of saltiness.  I also liked that they kept their shape and didn't shrink under heat.  Hubby agreed with me, except was disappointed that their texture was slightly pappy (he was hoping they'd be coarser than that) and suspected that the saltiness hid the fact that they didn't taste all that porky.  However, we were both agreed that for the extra 30p or so for 8 - over a supermarket special offer sausage - they were infinitely better quality and well worth the extra.

I'm hoping that they'll let me have a copy of their full price list, which would make menu planning so much easier.  I'll be able to use cheaper cuts of meat which just aren't available in supermarkets and be able to plan it all out at home, using their price list, before ringing them up on a Monday, to order for Tuesday's collection.  Fingers crossed they'll do that!