It is no secret we are meat eaters here. We have tried a number of vegan and vegetarian meals, but we always come back to a good old fashioned home cooked meal with meat at the heart!
Finding a decent butcher that not only provides good quality product but a price point to match, is hard to find. We were delighted to be asked to work with Swaledale Butchers to create a review based on trying a sample of their items.
Swaledale are, by ethos, a whole carcass butcher, meaning they only purchase the meat they know they can sell. All of their butchers are trained with skills and techniques to allow a nose to tail approach with regards to minimizing wastage. All of the Swaledale beef is dry ages for at least 28 days. All sausages and burgers are made on site using the same quality of meats as their joints and steaks.
Amongst the items ordered we thought we would try out the grass fed, native breed and dry aged Denver Steak. Denver steak is meat cut from the chuck located on the shoulder. This is an intensely flavoured meat can work well with simple seasoning and quickly pan fried.
We decided to use the Argentinian spice rub we had in, and boy did it pack a punch. We simply oiled the steaks and coated them with the rub. The steaks were them fried for 2 minutes each side (twice), so 8 minutes total. This gave a delicious medium/rare which I love.
The steaks were so easy to cut and were perfect melt in the mouth pieces. Considering it was only £8 for both pieces this is definitely something we would look at purchasing again in the future. I can imagine these with a simple salt and pepper seasoning or a peppercorn sauce on the side. Perfect!
For over a decade we have been working with some of the best chefs in the UK – our community of chefs have become great friends and often visit us and our farmers, without whom, it goes without saying, none of this would be possible.
Overall, everything we have tried from Swaledale has been amazing. So much more filling than supermarket ‘meats’ and I would rather pay a little more knowing both the butcher and meat are high quality, and from a farm to table source.
