If you eat meat, buying whole pieces and learning how to cut them up yourself is a more cost-effective way to go, says Hannah Miller, aka A Lady Butcher.
"If the end of the world was coming, who would you want on your team? Probably a butcher."
Photo: A Lady Butcher
Hannah first learnt how to butcher her own meat while working as a chef in London and now runs butchery classes and sells cured meats.
Her style of butchery is called 'seam cutting' – which is a great first thing to learn for home butchery.
"It's just using a knife and following the natural seams of the muscles, where they divide."
Usually, about 30 to 40 percent of an animal is bone and a lot of times those bones become fertiliser or pet food, Hannah says.
When you buy whole meat to butterfly a lamb leg or spatch-cock a chicken at home, you can barbecue the meat, use the bones yourself for stocks and broths before they become compost, and, with lamb, use the shank for another meal – so you get three for one.
Hannah also loves cooking tongue and heart, which you can clean up then just pop on to a chargill for a couple of minutes each side.
Usually she doesnt tell her husband and friends what she's serving as a lot of people aren't into the idea of offal.
"Offal has some of the highest nutrient levels of anything on the beast. So looking at it from a health perspective, it's the number one thing you want to be eating."
"It's basically like another muscle. It's essentially like eating steak but has a much higher iron content."
Hannah's beef tongue terrine recipe takes a week to make, but the steps themselves are really easy, she says.
Recipe: Beef Tongue Terrine
