support your local butcher

Support your local butchers. For the sake of the community, and your taste buds too. - Tom Parker Bowles

We need to cherish the excellent traditional butchers who have kept going valiantly in the teeth of the supermarket takeover of our food chain. As the Meat Crusade puts it, if one in 10 of us returned to our local butcher that would be make a real difference. And if one in five of us did so, even once a week, it could start a revolution. - Joanna Blythman

How do you measure the well-being of your local area? Certainly not by economic factors alone: my manor, Peckham, may have high levels of poverty and unemployment but by God it is gloriously, vibrantly alive. After 6pm, when many other high streets across the land have shut up shop, the Rye Lane area south of the train station is abuzz. Because of the fantastic variety of shops - and not only those selling food. If the number of nail salons per capita were an indicator (and I'm not sure it shouldn't be) we'd be top of the wellbeing league table.

Do you know of the Five Ways to Well-being project? It identified these simple activities that individuals can do in their everyday lives to improve and maintain their well-being: Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Give.

And one of the most important ways we can connect with our community, thinks I, is by using and supporting our local, independent shops. However convenient supermarkets may be, you can't connect with the soulless buggers.

So more power to John Penny, the wholesale butchers, and their Meat Crusade - a campaign to champion local butchers across Britain. Put simply: use them or lose them, people.

And, for when you do, below are ten recipes utilising some of the cheaper cuts of meat.

recipes:

chicken liver bruschetta

serves two as a light snack or one for a more substantial supper
200g chicken livers
milk
flour
2 tbsps olive oil
20g butter 
1 shallot, finely diced 
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
a blob of tomato purée
2 tbsp chicken stock
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
2 thick slices of pugliese or sourdough bread, toasted on a griddle
salt + black pepper

Soak the chicken livers in the milk for a few hours or more. Remove and drain, Season them and coat with flour. Heat the oil in a frying pan to fairly high and fry the livers until they start to colour - a couple of minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and pour off any excess oil. Melt the butter in the pan and add the shallot and garlic.  After a minute or two add the balsamic and tomato purée,stir and then add the stock. As the stock bubbles away, return the livers to the pan together with the parsley and reheat, stirring all the time. Put the toasted bread onto two plates and spoon over the livers and juices.

sausage + peppers

De-skin your favourite sausages and form the meat into ten or so little chipolatas.

serves two
2 tbsps olive oil
approx. 250g sausages
½ onion, thinly sliced
1 large garlic clove, crushed and chopped
1 large red pepper, seeded and sliced
a pinch of fennel seeds
60ml  white wine
200g tinned tomatoes (use more tomato than juice)
salt + black pepper

Brown the chipolatas in oil in a frying pan. Remove and set aside. Add the onions, garlic, peppers and fennel seeds to the pan and fry until the moisture has evaporated and the mixture has softened and is starting to brown. Add the wine and scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any sediment. Add the tomatoes, return the sausages to the pan and season with pepper. Cover and cook over low heat for 30-35 minutes. Season with salt to taste.

scrag end of lamb, olive + tomato stew

serves two-three
1-1.2kg  piece of lamb scrag end
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, roughly chopped
1 small carrot, roughly chopped
1 small stick celery, roughly chopped
60ml white wine
a sprig of rosemary
1 tin Italian cherry tomatoes, drained of their juice
10-12 black olives, stoned and halved
about 500ml chicken stock
salt + black pepper
chopped parsley

Ideally, you'll have a small-ish casserole into which the lamb will just fit. When I made this recently, with a piece just a smidge over a kilo, it fit snugly into an 18cm diameter dish I have. Anyhow, in whatever you've got, brown the lamb all over in the olive oil, then remove. Throw in the vegetables to brown. Remove them with a slotted spoon and throw in the wine. Let it bubble away to almost nothing, while you scrape the bottom of the casserole to loosen the crusty bits. Drop the rosemary sprig into the casserole and place the lamb on top. Mix together the vegetables, tomatoes and olives and then pack in around the meat. Pour in stock until the lamb is just covered. Season with black pepper (I'd leave the salt until the end). Bring to a simmer and then place in a 160C/140C fan oven for about three hours, until the sauce has reduced somewhat and the meat falls off the bone.

Remove the casserole from the oven and take out the lamb. Drain the stock/sauce from the casserole into a jug and allow to cool. Once cooled, spoon off the fat that has risen to the top. Pour back over the vegetables. Pull the meat from the lamb bone and shred. Add this to the casserole and now taste and season with salt. Reheat gently and serve with chopped parsley scattered over.

devilled kidneys

This is from Caroline Conran's British Cooking.

serves two
4 lamb's kidneys, skinned, cored and diced
1 heaped tsp of flour
salt 
cayenne pepper
1 tbsp dry english mustard
25g butter
1 tsp of worcestershire sauce
75ml chicken stock
2 pieces of hot buttered toast

Dust the kidneys with flour, salt and plenty of cayenne pepper. Roll them in dry mustard. Melt the butter in a small frying pan and cook the kidneys over a gentle heat for five minutes, turning them over now and again. They should be just pink inside*. When they are almost done to your liking, pour the Worcestershire sauce and the stock around them, simmer until the gravy is thick and serve them on hot buttered toast.

* I tend to remove the kidneys at this point and reduce the gravy by itself.

cottage pie

This is a damn fine cottage pie. The quantities here are enough for four people - I make four individual pies, eat one and freeze the rest.

serves four
675g minced beef
4 dsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 carrot, diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 x 400g tin of tomatoes
3 tbsps tomato ketchup
2 tsps worcestershire sauce
½ tsp thyme leaves
½ tsp ground cumin
300ml beef or chicken stock
salt + pepper
grated hard cheese - gruyère, cheddar etc.
mash made with 1kg of potatoes, 100g butter and 50ml milk
a knob of butter

Heat 1 dsp of oil in a frying pan and fry a third of the mince (if you try and fry too much at a time, it'll stew rather than fry) until browned. Remove to a large sieve placed over a bowl. Wipe the pan, and repeat twice with oil/mince. Add the final dsp of oil to a deep pan and fry the onion, carrot and garlic until coloured. Add the drained mince to the pan along with all other ingredients except seasoning. Simmer for 1 hour. Season to taste. Spoon the mixture into your pie dish/es; Add a layer of the grated cheese. Top with mash, ridge with the tines of a fork and dot with butter. Put in the oven at 200C/fan 180C and cook for about 30 mins, or until the topping is golden. I can never think about having cottage pie without buttered peas.

chicken leg + rosemary

serves one
1 chicken leg
1 tbsp of olive oil
2 small garlic cloves, squashed but intact (or two halves of a large clove)
a sprig of rosemary
a glass of white wine
salt and black pepper

You want a smallish, deep-sided pan and a lid for this. I use a 20cm wok. Heat the oil and sauté the chicken skin side down until crisp and golden. Turn over and throw in the garlic and rosemary. After 5 minutes, strain off most of the oil and add the wine to deglaze. It will quickly start to bubble away. Turn the heat down low, put a lid on the pan and gently simmer for about 30 minutes. Check now and again to make sure the liquor hasn't completely dried out - add a bit more wine if needed. You want a couple or more tablespoons left at the end to pour over your chicken and the mash which you'll no doubt be serving with it.

pork belly + pea stew

If you're buying skin-on, on the bone pork belly, you'll need around 550-600g to give you the right amount of meat for this recipe.

serves two
1 dsp olive oil
350-400g boneless, skinless pork belly
1 onion, sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
½ tsp of paprika
1 dsp of sherry vinegar
up to 300ml chicken stock
a blob of tomato purée or ketchup
200g frozen petit pois, defrosted
1 large waxy potato, in small chunks
chopped flat leaf parsley
salt + black pepper

In a frying pan, brown the pork in the oil and remove with a slotted spoon into a casserole dish. Fry the onion and garlic until softened and brown. Add the paprika and fry for a minute. Add the vinegar and stir and scrape. Add a little of the stock, the purée and some black pepper. Stir. Spoon the onion mixture into the casserole and add more stock so everything is just covered. Put a lid on the casserole and simmer gently for 40 minutes. Add the potatoes (and more stock to cover) and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the petit pois, adding more stock if necessary and simmer for about 20 minutes more, or until the potatoes are soft.  Check that the flavour of the sherry vinegar is prominent. If not, drizzle on a little more and stir.  Check the seasoning. Ladle into bowls and sprinkle with parsley.

lamb's liver + balsamic vinegar

I like to firm up the liver in the freezer before slicing it wafer-thin.

serves one
125-150g lamb's liver, in slivers (5mm or less)
salt + pepper
olive oil
several splashes of balsamic or sherry vinegar

Season the liver. Heat a frying pan to high and add a splash of oil. Fry the liver for no more than two minutes, adding a splash or two of vinegar to deglaze the pan.

a very simple beef stew

Heinz tomato soup? What the fuck? I know, I know, but I absolutely promise you something magical happens during the five hours it's in the oven. The soup, stock and meat juices transmogrify into a deep, luscious gravy. I  saw this done on some daytime cookery programme years ago, but can't remember which one or who cooked it.

serves two
500g shin of beef, cubed
2 small onions, peeled and quartered
2  small carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
300g tin of Heinz cream of tomato soup
300ml of beef or chicken stock
black pepper (if you're using a stock cube you won't need any more salt)

Put everything into a medium sized casserole dish and cover. Place in an oven heated to 160C/140C fan. Leave for 5 hours. That's it. Unless you want to get all la-di-da and fancy-knickers about it, in which case you can add a bay leaf and a sprig or two of thyme.

slow roast shoulder of pork

Gloriously crisp crackling and meltingly soft meat to die for.

serves two
1.2-1.5kg bone-in shoulder of pork
sea salt crystals
1 onion, quartered
1 dsp flour
125ml cider or wine
125ml chicken stock

Score the skin of the joint all over (your butcher will do this for you). Pour boiling water over the skin and then drain and pat dry with kitchen roll.  This is to open up the scored skin and so help you get great crackling. Rub sea salt crystals into the the slashes you have made. Roast at 220C/200C fan for 30 minutes. Reduce the heat to 170C/150C fan and cover the pork with a double layer of tinfoil. Return to the oven for 3 hours. After an hour, throw the onion quarters into the tray and drizzle with a little oil (the onion will add colour to the gravy later). When the 3 hours are up take the tray out of the oven, remove the tinfoil (keep it for resting the joint later) and transfer the roast into a new tray and roast for a further hour*. Spoon out the fat from the first tray, leaving the juices and sticky bits. Place this pan over a low heat, sprinkle the flour over and stir for a few seconds. Pour in the cider and stock and bring to a bubbling simmer, scraping the bottom with a wooden spoon. Simmer for a few minutes, check for seasoning, then strain into a small pan, to re-heat when your roast is ready. That's your gravy. At the end of the hour, remove the joint from the oven, cover with the saved tin foil and let it rest while you get whatever vegetables you're having with it ready. If the crackling needs a final nudge towards achieving perfection, remove it from the joint, flatten, and place under a high grill for a minute or so, never taking your eyes off it - you don't want it to burn.

* If you're having roast potatoes with the pork, add them to the roasting tray at this point. Then, while the pork is resting, you can raise the heat in the oven to finish them off.

butchers in peckham:

Flock and Herd
155 Bellenden Road
SE15 4DH

W. Bunting
13 Peckham Park Rd
SE15 6TR

United Meat
62 Peckham High Street
SE15 5DP