If you cook and eat meat and poultry, buying from a real butcher is one of the most important cooking choices you can make. There’s a difference between the meat and chicken sold pre-cut and pre-wrapped at a supermarket and what’s sold at a butcher. I’m no food snob and I'm glad to buy a Bell & Evans chicken at my local supermarket. But given the choice, I want to choose my own chicken, select my favorite lamb shoulder chops (blade bone, please), or have complete control over the size and shape of my veal roast.
Nearly everything I know about buying and cooking meat I’ve learned from butchers. Years ago I took a class about meat at The New School taught by the late and very wonderful Jack Ubaldi, a gifted butcher who owned the Florence Prime Meat Market in Greenwich Village for forty years. Jack Ubaldi was also famous for an act of virtuosity known as glove boning a chicken where he would completely de-bone a chicken (except the legs) with one hand, without cutting the skin, and removing the chicken’s skeleton in one piece. (If I hadn’t seen him do it, I wouldn’t think it could be done.)
While I've never learned to glove bone a chicken, butchers have taught me how to choose a fresh ham; how to perfectly roast a beef prime rib -- at over $100 for the thing, you do not want to mess this up; and why a bargain-priced shoulder lamb chop is more flavorful than the rib.
Here’s what’s important to know: The butcher isn’t there just to wrap up and weigh what you want. He’s also there to finish the item to your exact needs. Otherwise we could just buy the thing all cut and wrapped at D’Agostino’s. So if you’re shopping at a butcher shop or at a store with a great meat department (like Jefferson Market or Citarella), here are some tips to make the butcher your friend:
- First, talk to him. Tell him what you’re shopping for and what you’re going to do with it
- Ask for advice. If you’re buying a roast, and even if you already have your recipe, ask him how he’d cook it. Really listen to what he says, especially when he talks about testing for doneness or heat of the oven
- If you’re not certain about which cut of steak to buy, ask for guidance
- Need to know how many servings in that strip of baby back ribs? Your butcher will know
- Smile and show him you know he has expertise. We all like to be respected for what we know and most butchers are craftsmen.
Here is some of what you can ask for, and no, it won’t cost extra:
- French rib lamb chops or a rack of lamb. This means having the bones scraped down so that the ribs are exposed. Frenching is also sometimes done to a leg of lamb roast, making it shorter and easier to fit into a roast pan
- Pound flat chicken breasts or veal scallopini
- De-boning. For example, taking a full bone-in leg of lamb and cutting out the bone, leaving you with a butterflied piece of meat. You’ll still pay for the bones if that’s how the item was originally priced but you’ll be able to take them in a separate package (I freeze mine for stock)
- Give you a length of butcher's string so that you can tie up the legs of that whole chicken you just bought and plan to roast
- Cut anything into a smaller size. This is particularly helpful if you want to cut something that is boned and probably don’t have the knives to do this at home – for example, if you choose 1” thick bone-in pork chops but want them instead to be only ½ “ thick.
A final word: nearly every butcher I’ve ever spoken with is an enthusiastic home cook. If it’s a place you shop often, ask him his name and tell him yours. (Don’t get me started about my tears when my favorite Citarella butcher, Jack, retired last year.)
Get to know your favorite butcher and you’ll be a far, far better cook for it.
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