Workshop Butchery....

[imageel]

No not another tale of woes like two recent threads posted by BarbaraT and Mynewka but some deliberate hacking of flesh, sinews and bones...
A couple of weekends ago I'd bought a 1.3kg blister pack of beef short ribs from my local supermarket and planned to cook them in my Instantpot pressure cooker so preparations aside the cooking time was only 50mins or so.
The pack as purchased was shrunk-wrapped and not entirely recognizable however I'd assumed it consisted of maybe 4 or so ribs so imagine my surprise when at around 6pm I cut the pack open to find it was just 2 ribs the longest of which was 10inches long!
Now to get the best flavour from these you need to sear them first to render the fat in a very hot pan, and aside from a wok I hadn't a saucepan large enough to fit these in whole and since I didn't wish to decorate the hob plus environs with hot fat splashes I implemented plan-B...
I popped the two ribs into a casserole dish and grabbed a damp dishcloth and a bunch of paper towels and set off in the pitch dark to my workshop some 140m down the end of the garden, managing to get there without tripping over anything nor dropping the ribs!
I then wiped over the bandsaw worktable and very carefully holding the damp cloth against the running blade - somewhat sketchy however I was careful to hold the cloth such that my digits were clear of the teeth and also that the cloth would not drag my hand in if it caught on the blade...
So blade now reasonably clean I cut both ribs in two surprisingly quickly - I've always considered bandsaws to be rather benign in the grand scale of things ( I own an ancient spindle moulder which is anything but..) but for a woodworker it was somewhat strange to be purposely feeding flesh and bone where it oughten to be and for some bizarre reason it reminded me at that moment of an old film 10 Rillington Place....
Anyways I managed to get back to my house without any mishaps and after a cursory rinse under a cold tap they cleaned up nicely
Pics below show the process - the end result was absolutely yummy !
Am moved to contact the supermarket about this, even doing these with a hacksaw would have been tedious and messy and likely beyond the scope for most folk...

 

[Tris]

They are a popular tool in butcheries, but not so popular with whoever has to clean them, especially if the last job was frozen lamb

 

[user 43593]

I'd bought a 1.3kg blister pack of beef short ribs from my local supermarket

I don't do this anymore. I buy direct from the farmers and the difference in food quality is night and day. I am using Lancashire Lamb Boxes and this newly married couple (Eden and John) provide beef, pork and lamb, beautifully butchered and packaged. Order any day online and it will arrive on Thursday. I will leave a link and if the mods think it is inappropriate, they can remove it. With so much ersatz processed food available these days, it is a real pleasure to replicate tastes I can remember from the 50s and 60s. Lancashire Lamb Boxes

 

[Austin Branson]

I don't do this anymore. I buy direct from the farmers and the difference in food quality is night and day. I am using Lancashire Lamb Boxes and this newly married couple (Eden and John) provide beef, pork and lamb, beautifully butchered and packaged. Order any day online and it will arrive on Thursday. I will leave a link and if the mods think it is inappropriate, they can remove it. With so much ersatz processed food available these days, it is a real pleasure to replicate tastes I can remember from the 50s and 60s. Lancashire Lamb Boxes

I wonder if they deliver to Normandy? Bacon would also be appreciated.

 

[user 43593]

I think not. Getting fresh produce around the UK is probably difficult enough. Perhaps finding a brit who likes to travel to France regularly might work if you could order and freeze enough bacon at a time.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The ease with which it cut the ribs just show their efficiency with fingers.

 

[worn thumbs]

Not something I have tried myself,but I have been on the periphery,unwittingly.What happened was that I worked for a company that usually presented each of the workforce with a frozen turkey at Christmas and they were quality birds.A few of the workforce had family or friends with whom they stayed at significant times of year and didn't always need to turn up on the doorstep with a turkey under their arm.It so happened that we had quite a bit of freezer space on the premises and it was far from unusual to see a frozen turkey in there.
Any way,one Easter we returned from the usual break and were slightly mystified to find the bandsaw in the workshop absolutely spotless.Pleased to see it though.A few weeks later we got the rest of the story;a couple of the blokes had noticed that one of the turkeys in storage had the name of a fellow who had left written on the box.they decided that he wouldn't be needing a turkey that was miles away and fancied half a turkey each.So they cleaned the bandsaw very thoroughly and sliced the bird in half.Happy Easter.
Unfortunately,they had overlooked the bag of giblets inside the turkey,which spread themselves inside the saw's casing and necessitated another thorough clean up.Which was why the saw was so clean.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A little off tack, but we mixed 1300kg of Xmas puddings in a brand new cement mixer one year.

 

[pauljhaigh58]

I used to deliver to British ropes in Belgium
The manager there could not get hold of decent British sausages so I got our local butcher to make up 10lbs at at time .we traded for best steak which he could get easily if yo know a delivery driver who goes across the channel regularly have a chat
Paul

 

[porker]

Remember you are not allowed to take any meat or dairy products into the EU from the UK post Brexit

 

[TRITON]

I ended up for my sins in a bacon factory once. Mainly on a horizontal slice portioning machine(cuts anything frozen in varying thicknesses) They'd also a bandsaw, and as well as everything else it was pressure washed.
I'll occasionally use my bandsaw for cutting lamb chops, but being a wood one, cleaning is tricky. The fat coats the blade and the inside takes on a greasy feel.

Meat bandsaws are quite simple things really, huge depth and width of cut but cost a ridiculous amount of money. You can pay anywhere up to £8k for one of the bigger ones.

 

[Superduner]

Remember you are not allowed to take any meat or dairy products into the EU from the UK post Brexit

I think that you are ok if it's frozen. Not been a problem for me so far, anyway.

 

[stuart little]

I grabbed two whole legs of lamb when on 1/2 price @ Mr Snby's, but being on my own, one was too much, so got my Japanese cross cut saw, gave it a good wash (it was clean to begin with), & 10 pull-strokes later I had two joints.