Trying my hand at butchery in Corries Butchers

Corries run a range of courses designed to take students back to basics. They offer a good grounding in traditional butchery skills and tips on what to look for when buying meat.

I’m not the biggest meat eater in the world but my interest had been piqued. Would I be up for this? Oh yes I would! Duly I skipped off to Ballyhackamore to see what was in store for me!

On arrival, I met butchers John and Neil who gave me and the 3 other participants a warm welcome along with a plastic protective apron. John talked us through what to to expect and started by presenting the group with a full hind quarter of beef to inspect. Thankfully they have a life sized plastic cow in the shop, handily marked with all the cuts of meat as an easy to understand reference tool.
Now I don’t know one end of a cow from the other so it was big news to me that the hindquarter is where all the prime cuts of beef are located – who knew?

With the sharpest of knives, John started cutting, explaining every move.  He stressed that one wrong cut can be an expensive mistake. he removed shin meat (delicious but largely underrated) and the spider, oyster or popes eye steak before cleanly popping out the femur bone.  When he carefully split the topside from the  silverside he made us sniff the meat for its unusual sweet smell.  Quite an odd experience!  He then removed the knuckle joint, topside, heel & eye of silverside, flank, shell of ribeye, tomahawk steak, rib roast and rib eye.  We even got to have a go (but not before we had signed a disclaimer form and donned a metal mesh glove for protection.  I turned my hand to removing a rib and then very carefully cutting a rib eye steak, which was set aside for me to take home.

Next up was Neil, a bit of a Willy Wonka in the butchery business.  Passionate about cooking, he loves experimenting with flavours and processes for the meat.  He showed us a joint that he was using to try the traditional tallow raging process and another that was being wet aged in whiskey.  Most of the meat is treated in a Himalayan salt chamber.  He also shared some morsels of beef that he had flavoured with teriaki seasoning.  I was really impressed by the love he has for what he does!

Neil showed us the mincing process using only the best quality beef, I was then selected to hand mix the beef and spices before we all got to make our own burgers.  Quite a therapeutic activity as it turns out!  Again, our own burgers were set aside for us to take home.

Throughout the night, we were able to sample the various cuts of meat from a platter of tempting nibbles which really showed how good the meat is.  At the end of the course, we were presented with a goodie bag containing the steak we had cut, the burgers we had made, some cured bacon and a tub of Himalayan salt.  Having got to handle the meat, it was fabulous to be able to take it home to cook and eat.

There’s a good reason why it takes a while to train as a butcher.  There really is a lot of skill involved.  I may not have a future career in butchery but I loved loved loved this taster session!

You can find out more about Corries on the Farm and the courses available here