Tip
Don't buy meat from the supermarket, go to a butchers, try to get a reccommendation for good one.
Been buying meat from one for a year now, the meat is soooooo much better than the bland stuff you get at the supermarket and around the same price. Even mince for spag bols and such there is a huge difference in flavour.

I really is worth the effort - unless you are a veggie of course.

Poxy Sainsbury ad makes it look like they invented hanging meat.

[Edited by Paul Habgood - 10/4/2003 7:45:58 AM]

Gimmie a nice bit of dark red/brown steak with a bit of a dry crust on the outside. One that comes from a traditionally reared highland cow, and has been hanging around for a good long time. That will have a good flavour and texture. The bright red stuff that you get in cellophane packs in the supermarket tastes of nothing. Might as well eat red cardboard.

[Edited by ProperCharlie - 10/4/2003 9:41:12 AM]

Steaks awesome so is fish. MY best friends say that also try going to a real butcher's think ill try that next time.

Si[/b]

[Edited by super_si - 10/4/2003 10:56:01 PM]

Just wondering, when you buy the average joint of meat from the supermarket - how long is likely since the animal was slaughtered. Saino's is advertising extra matured beef which has been knocking about for 21 days - sounds a bit rank for me :( more like rotten!

Was hoping it would be a few days but probably with modern addatives and deep freezes it could be months - are there any guide lines:confused:
Also having more unpleasant thoughts about last weeks donner kebab thread:(

Anything that has been slaughtered within the last week will still look like dead flesh - IE - Blood clots falling out of it. 'Fresh meat' from a quality butcher probably hasn't been running around for 8-10 days anyway

Hello

The best thing you can do is slaughter your own meat if you want it fresh. Certainly not my idea of fun.

I was in Hong Kong and ordered chicken. They brought the chicken to the table, slaughtered it in front of me to show it was fresh. (To which the only natural response it to turn to your dining partner and shout "Don't order beef!").

Steve.

<Rick Stein mode on> We are (in the UK at least) condititioned to eating bright red meat which we assume was slaughtered yesterday. It's bright red because it is pumped full of water and colour to make it look fresh.

Dry-cured bacon, prosciouto (sorry too late to bother with spelling) and a lot of meats you buy on the deli are air-dried and not cooked at all, just hung for a couple of months.

Go to a farm shop and try buy some beef, pork etc. that was killed within the last week and you will get a funny look.

Never heard of 'game' bird meat (not talking about local slapper)? The gamey flavour comes from it being on the verge of going rotten.

The Sainsbury thing is just a gimick. An excuse to charge £5 a kilo extra for something that would cost less than their normal price from a farmer's market.

<Rick Stein mode off>

Like Beer Good said, I have been round a meat processing plant, they inject Nitrogen into the packs to stop oxidation of the blood and keep it looking red.

I used to get steak from a welder I worked with - he used to get it from a bloke that came round to his local pub in a van - this dude used to do the markets etc..

for £20 you could get 6 or so humungus fillets[licks lips], and usually 6 of the biggest baddest ass T-bones you have ever seen, cue:

"How would sir like his steak?"
" oh just wipe it's ar$e and leave the horns on " :D

Anyway, this steak was not like anything you had ever tasted, basically because it was on the verge of turning. You could tell because there was a certain smell to it not like the supermarket stuff, everyone that had it had to get some more, a bit like the "special stuff" in Royston Vasey:), In the end I was getting it for a couple of mates and my parents.


The last time I got some I had stopped working with this lad so I called at his pub to pick up my bag of meat. I saw him at the bar and we went into the pool room at the back of the pub. I expected to find the meat in a fridge in the kitchen but insted he opened a cupboard full of old trainers and dartboards and pulled out the meat :eek: . As I remember there was a funny whiff in the air but I put it down to the trainers.

I got the meat home and opened up the bag ready to put all the steaks into individual bags for the freezer.............

The smell that greeted me would have made a hyena gag - it was mega rancid, It all went staright in the dustbin. Stangeley enough I got the missus to get the meat from the butchers after that - it still better than the supermarket steak - but not a patch on the "special stuff" ;)


baaaa,

mj.

Agreed, beef is best when it's been hung for a good bit before cooking. A good friendly butcher is a good find :)

They just compared supermarket steak on Saturday Kitchen on BBC2.

Verdict was it was all crap - including M&S. Only one vaguely acceptable was Jamie Oliver's 21 day hung stuff from Sainsburys...

...but they still preferred the local butcher one.

you learn something new everyday, and i work with two butchers.

wot about chickens? there fresh arn't they.

Si.

Do a "Search" for my opinions on supermarket and most other chickens.......

You must be bloody mad to eat the stuff. The public are the most uneducated shoppers around..they buy any old Krap

It should be banned.

I arent keen on that 21 day meat didnt rate it and i go through loads steaks a week

Si

super_si - maybe you're conditioned into liking the bland red meat the supermarkets have been feeding us.....with no marbling, and no yellow fat.

If you want flavour, go to a real butcher for proper hung meat, which has a real flavour (cos it is rotting!- hehe!).

If you'rew just after the protein, is steak the best thing???

So if I understand correctly, there is a fine line between matured meat and meat that has started to decompose? yum yum :(

Where exactly is it left to "hang" such that bacteria and bugs don't start munching it before you do?

I'm sure we have all come across something that has been dead for a month and nature has gone to work on - not pleasant.

Oh, and before the muppets arrive - by "come across" I just meant discover, nothing sicker :p

3 week old meat yummy, know wonder i'm alway get the ****$. and indian food use spices to hide the smell of rotting food, yummy.

Si

Funny how moast ppl will buy either topside or silverside then cook it for a Sunday lunch. They dont realise these joints should be for braising. A proper roast joint would be either a rib or sirloin. These will have a good proportion of fat on them which
will also give superb roast spuds. Meat should also have been hung for 21 days to mature before cooking.

Chip.