Yorkshire Welcome festival

This Sunday didn’t start off great as the day before Talldarkme was admitted again to hospital and I’d only managed to scrape together about 3 hours sleep. I knew I had to be in Thirsk for a butchery demo at lunchtime and frankly I wouldn’t be able to do anything at home other than sit around consuming my own body weight in tea and toast so this was a welcome distraction until visiting time. 

I’ve never actually been to Thirsk in the daylight as I usual go there for the Q Guild meetings of the North East region which are always in the evenings so this was my first chance to see it in daylight and I have to say the market square is well worth a visit for its traditional pubs and great shops selling local produce.

Dodging the summery showers I made my way across the historic square to Johnson’s butcher shop to meet husband and wife team Andrew and Sarah. The shop has been on the same site for over 100 years and the inside still has its charming glazed tile Victorian style interior. Not only was their counter impressively well stocked with a wide variety of meaty treats they also had a comprehensive cookbook library behind the counter for customers who want to know what to do with their meat.

As we talked about all things meat related, in particular their range of award winning pies and sausages, we could see the Yorkshire Welcome festival taking place in the market square. Even better a lot of the festival goers were coming into the shop to pick up their Sunday dinner on the way back to the car. This for me just proves how great these kinds of events can be to encourage people to go back to their local shops.

Soon it was time to head to the market square and watch Andrew do his thing, he’d chosen a lamb carcass to demonstrate on.  He started out by talking about how he takes great pride in sourcing meat from the local area so that he knows it has had a good quality of life, and then he went through each section of the lamb all the cuts and how to cook them. 

The meat was then auctioned off in batches of six and I was one of the lucky bidders so expect to see few lamb recipes on here soon! In total £270 was raised for Macmillan so it was time well spent for the soul and the belly. I spent the time after the demo perusing the stalls and picking up a few treats for me to try out on here later, there was an impressive amount of stalls offering everything from barbecued local meat to cupcakes. Impressively the event was organised by a group of Yorkshire loving locals who wanted to show off how great Thirsk and its produce is.  They did an excellent job and I hope they’ll hold the same event next year.

Butchery and Yorkshire - two of my favourite things combined into one!

This weekend I’ll be going to Thirsk to see Andrew from Johnsons Butchers do a butchery demo at the Welcome Yorkshire festival. The demo will be held at 1.30pm on Sunday 29^th July in Thirsk’s historic market square in the cookery theatre. Once Andrew has finished his demo he'll be raffling off the meat for Macmillan cancer support, so it's not only educational you might just win your Sunday dinner!

After that I’ll probably peruse the food market  and try out the various samples on offer, all in the name of research of course! The festival celebrates all things Yorkshire, from its people to its food. Personally I can’t think of a better way to spend a pre-Yorkshire Day weekend.

Why shop at your local butcher?

 

Once or twice a month I throw off the invisible shackles my limbs have to the PC and I hit the road to visit some of the UK’s best butchers for work. Most butchers are in their shop boning out meat and baking pies at 6am when most of us are still tucked up in our beds. The ever competitive high street means they have to stay one step ahead of the game to stay on top.

Many are not only selling meat but they also offer hot and cold sarnies, cakes, fresh fruit and veg and there are even a few who will let you use their Wi-Fi. I have yet to meet an unapproachable butcher but from speaking to friends and family I seem to hear the same thing. 

They want to visit their butcher, they know the meat from them will be so much tastier, but something is holding them back.  The vast array of meat on offer in a good butchers shop is way beyond the poultry offering (yes bad pun I know) you see in a conventional supermarket. But sometimes this puts some people off as they don't know how to cook it.

But your local butcher is just crying out to talk to you about this, when they aren’t busy cutting up meat they’re eating it so they can give you really good advice when it comes to cooking. The other preconception people have is they think it will be expensive, well yes if you choose to live on filet mignon all week it will be.

But if you plan ahead and do some savvy meal planning you can save a fortune. How often have you bought meat from the supermarket cooked it and thrown half of it away? Just think of what you could have done with it?

Last year I took a top side and roasted it for Sunday lunch, then I used the left overs and made meals that would feed a family of four for a week click here for the recipes. Not only were the dishes tasty but they were varied so you didn’t feel as though you were ploughing through a week of never ending beefy overload.

There are also some great forgotten cuts that you can cook with that deliver maximum taste with minimal impact on the wallet. The below recipe is part of The Meat Crusade cookbook which will be coming out late 2012/early 2013 and uses that great forgotten cut shin of beef. I came up with the dish when I was on a post Glastonbury re-charge holiday in the West Country.  This area was once notorious for smugglers wrecking ships off the coast and looting the contents, which was usually French brandy or port from Portugal.

This recipe originally used a whole bottle of port, I’ve tried this and suggest that you don’t, if you do don’t come crying to me. Wine is a vast improvement and it also means that as cook you can treat yourself to a glass. See a thrify meal and I’m think about you dear reader, what more could you ask for!

The beetroot adds a really nice twist to the flavour, although originally it was added to hide the presence of the port should the customs man come a knocking. Whilst it’s no way near as complex as something from the kitchens at El Bulli it delivers great taste with minimal effort. Perfect for the haphazard weather we’re having at the moment.

Smugglers’ shin of beef

 

 

Ingredients

900g shin of beef

25g flour

25g beef dripping or cooking oil

½ pint red wine

¾ pint beef stock

1 onion

110g cooked beetroot cubed

Bundle of fresh herbs tied together with string –bay leaf, thyme and rosemary

Salt and pepper

To cook
Ask your butcher to remove any excess fat from the meat and dice it into cubes.

Pre-heat the oven to 150°C/300°F/Gas 2. On the hob melt the dripping in an oven proof casserole dish until it is completely melted.

Now add the beef and fry for 2 to 3 mins, reduce the heat and add the onion. Cook until lightly browned, stir in the flour and add the beef stock slowly stirring constantly to dissolve the flour and prevent any lumps forming.

Now add the wine, herb bundle and a pinch of salt and pepper, bring to a rolling boil then pop on the lid. Transfer to the oven and cook for 1½ to 2 hours adding the beetroot after the first hour.

Check the dish regularly and add more wine if it begins to dry out (if it doesn’t you can always treat yourself to a cheeky glass).

Serve with carrots and new potatoes or any root vegetable you like.

The Meat Crusade

Last year I started working on The Meat Crusade, a campaign to put real butchers’ meat back on the dinner table. It’s all about supporting a great British institution that delivers great quality meat to homes across the UK. According to Meat Trades Journal there used to be some 22,000 in the mid-90s. In 2010, there were just 6,553.

This video was one of the first projects I worked on for the campaign and it gives you an insight into what we are trying to do. For more information visit the campaign’s website.

Welcome to Bu Dish!

Welcome! Here you will find all my ramblings about food, especially meat. I work in the meat industry as a marketing exec so you will  find a lot of my food comments are about that. 

So why ‘Bu Dish’ and what does it mean?  Well as a child if I wanted to say something tasted good I said it was ‘bu dish’ and when I was thinking about setting up my blog it was the first thing that popped into my head. Anyway, welcome to my little corner of the web I hope you enjoy!