Good butchers are a rare breed. The profession requires love, dexterity and passion. You’ll hardly ever speak to a good one who doesn’t get misty-eyed about the beast he has butchered for your pleasure. Above all, you must love the thing you want to eat. Enough to slaughter, butcher and cook it.

In London, the Ginger Pig have clearly stolen a march on pretty much everyone else, because they know their beasts intimately from the field and they have made the most of customers who care about quality. Where else would they know that Belted Galloway (pictured above) has higher fat marbling on clover? You’ll find the same from Northfield Farm who I buy from at Broadway Market and the English Meat Company who sell online. In the past my Edinburgh stalwarts have been George Bowers, Crombie’s and Findlays of Portobello and in Glasgow, the redoubtable James Allan of Hyndland who sources from Orkney and Ayr.

As you enter each of these butcher shops, you have a sense of people loving their work and the experience it demands. And that is something they will happily impart. And having that willing and enthusiastic expertise on hand to learn from really does make the experience of cooking more satisfying. On every occasion, Tom, the Ginger Pig butcher based at Borough teaches me something new; like boiling the fat off mutton before slow-roasting and most recently using a rich, flaky shin of beef for my Julia Child Boeuf Bourguignon supper party.

This is the ethos of PipsDish and it’s what brings my kitchen to life. I prefer to focus on sourcing the best ingredients before end results. Because you need to cherish what you are cooking to produce something worth eating. Slavishly following a recipe will only take you to the end result and denies the ‘possibility of a miracle’ about which Elizabeth David continually wrote.

In his 1917 novel South Wind, the author Norman Douglas, who supported David to publish her first book, wrote: ‘to say that a cook must possess a requisite outfit of culinary skill and temperament – that is hardly more than saying a soldier mustappear in uniform. You can have a bad soldier in uniform. The true cook must not only have those externals, but a large dose of general worldly experience. He is the perfect blend, of artist and philosopher.’

This is the ethos of PipsDish and it’s what brings my kitchen to life. The Julia Child Boeuf Bourguignon was thus made miraculous for me by two things. Sautéing mushrooms in butter so that they do not touch ensures that somehow their juices don’t drain from them and their flavour is sealed. The recipe also demands small white onions to be added to the meat before serving. I could only find those the size of turtle eggs. Too big to braise, they were baked and placed in the bottom of the serving bowl before being covered in the rich emulsion of beef, claret and mushroom. As the dish was served it revealed a nest of perfectly white cooked onions and was pronounced a visual and culinary feast. So I learned something from Tom the butcher and Julia Child and brought something of my own worldly experience to the table.

It’s what PipsDish, is all about. I hope you enjoy it.

Butchers to talk to:

London: Theobalds (Central), H.G Walter (West), H Tidiman (East), Ginger Pig (Borough, London Fields, Marylebone, Yorkshire)

Glasgow: James Allan (West End)

Edinburgh: Crombies (Central), Findlays (Portobello), George Bower (Stockbridge)

READERS COMMENTS ON BOEUF BOURGUIGNON

POKERSPIEL
http://www.pokerspielen1.com

I should digg your post so other folks can look at it, very useful, I had a tough time finding the results searching on the web, thanks.

- Norman

September 20, 20101:21 pm

PHILIP DUNDAS
http://www.pipsdish.co.uk

thanks Norman, I appreciate the support, I will do but am still learning about all of this, so grateful for all advice!
Philip

September 26, 201012:52 pm

ALLENS OF MAYFAIR, ONLINE BUTCHER
http://www.allensofmayfair.co.uk/products/beef

Oldest butcher in London, you can go to their shop in Mayfair or order online !

July 18, 20113:11 pm

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