How to pep up those cheaper cuts of meat

30-May-2012 - Last updated on 31-May-2012 at 15:55 GMT

Mackenzie: "Using cheaper cuts produces fantastic, well-flavoured dishes"

Using cheaper cuts of meat is, I believe, an essential part of making a modern-day kitchen perform efficiently in regards to GP costs and making your menu more interesting to your customers.

At the Pipe & Glass, braised dishes are always a top seller — maybe because people don’t have the time or know-how these days to cook such things at home.

Using cheaper cuts and offal produces fantastic, well-flavoured dishes. You can easily make your basic beef casserole or beer-braised daube of beef more appealing by simply finishing it with an unusual fresh herb, such as lovage, hyssop or marjoram to make a very distinctive tasting gravy.

Other easy options are to spice up your dumplings (as they say!) with horseradish and ox tongue for beef, or make a mutton suet pudding seasoned with
mint and nettles.

I also try to use the cheaper cuts as a garnish to give a different flavour and texture: braised mutton and kidney faggots to garnish a crispy braised lamb shoulder, or slow-cooked mutton belly, pressed and breadcrumbed to make a crispy fritter for garnishing prime lamb meat.

A good rule of thumb is to cook the meat according to how much work it does on the animal — the harder-working, cheaper, cuts need longer, slower cooking. This can be done by traditional methods or by using sous vide in a water-bath. A water-bath takes considerably longer, but gives you a very concentrated flavour and consistency. If you are cooking pork belly sous vide, for instance, it could take eight to 10 hours at 85 degrees.

At the other end of the scale you could use neck fillet of lamb, which you’d normally braise for a long time to make it tender, but which can be cooked for a short time sous vide (15 minutes at 75 degrees) and then finished in a frying pan in foaming butter and fresh rosemary, carved and served. If you are using the sous-vide method place some aromats — thyme, mint, juniper or rosemary — in the bag to flavour the meat.

I cure beef brisket in brine and then boil it to make our own salt beef — great served cold in a salad — or make salt beef hash cakes served with a fried egg and gooseberry ketchup.

It’s good all round — for the customer, the chef and your budgets.

James Mackenzie is chef-proprietor at the Pipe & Glass Inn, South Dalton, East Yorkshire.