Ginger Pig Butchery Class

Amongst other glorious pressies that were bestowed on me for my recent 30th birthday I received a class at London's very well known and respected Ginger Pig butcher. I could choose from lamb, beef or pork butchery or sausage making. Feeling most comfortable with lamb and pork, I chose beef in order to learn more about the animal and hopefully to cook cow more often.

Last night, at 6.30pm a group of 12 (all male except for me and 2 other gals) assembled at the butcher in Marylebone. We donned our white butchers coats and were invited to have a walk around the cool room, where huge carcasses of meat were hanging, before the class started.

The classes started a couple of years ago, at the suggestion of one of our teachers, Borut. Borut was trained as a butcher in Slovenia where the apprenticeship sounds more intensive than in the UK and involves a 3 year training with time spent in an abattoir, charcuterie as well as traditional butchery. The classes have been a huge success and now Borut and Perry (who's been a butcher for at least 20 years, which, by the look of him, means he started out at about age 8) run the classes 5 nights a week (which gets them out of the 6am unloading of meat carcasses).

The class began with a short talk from Borut about how the cattle on the Ginger Pig's 4 farms in Yorkshire are raised and how the meat is dry aged. The ageing process was explained in detail and I now know why aged beef is a little more expensive (justifiably so). I also know that when supermarkets say their meat is "aged" it has been aged in a vac pack and not in the air, so the flavour hasn't really developed as it has for air aged beef (basically, support independent butchers and not supermarkets!).

Then it was macho showing off time, as each of the burly lads in the class (their classy suits well hidden underneath the white coats) attempted to lift and hold up the 100kg+ side of beef. Some managed it for 20 seconds, whilst I struggled to even lift one end by myself.

We studied a diagram of the cow and discussed how the meat toward the front of the cow, around its chest and shoulders, is fattier and more muscular and therefore needs slower cooking. We then proceeded to focus on the top, back of the cow, the meat that is leaner and not so muscular, and which is therefore better suited to quicker cooking, on a grill, pan, BBQ etc, as opposed to slow roasting.

Our class focused on the rib eye/fore rib, sirloin, porterhouse steaks, T-bone steaks, wing rib, fillet, down to the hip. We all had to saw through the bone between the ribs to divide the roast, and then through the meat with our super sharp knives.

The butchers had been roasting a tremendous looking rib eye for 3 hours, and it came out to rest just as we had to turn our 2.5kg slab of rib (above) into cote de boeuf (below!). I was rather satisfied with my efforts and most excited that we got to take home our beef (which showed on the Ginger Pig scales as being worth about £50). I also grabbed other people's beef bones for stock.

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We gathered around to salivate and watch Borut carve the huge fore rib, which was gorgeously pink inside with crusty yummy ends. I passed on the dauphinoise potatoes and had a token leaf of salad, not wanting to waste any stomach space! We stood around the butchers blocks with glasses of red wine, devouring our meat (if you're going to eat that much beef I can highly recommend doing it standing up), in heaven.

I rarely order beef when out, preferring lamb, pork or seafood, but this beef totally converted me. It was so so delicious.

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I am really looking forward to cooking my cote de boeuf and after that, perhaps a fore rib - but I shall only be using the best beef I can afford.

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I can't recommend the class highly enough and am very much hoping to go back for the lamb and pork classes. For £135 a person it's excellent value. Even if you don't ever want to do your own butchery at home, the class is a great education to assist you with buying and cooking beef.

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Many thanks to Georgia, Adrian, Erenie & Matina for such a wonderful birthday present!