The Everyday Meat Guide

A refreshingly simple yet comprehensive guide to buying, cooking, and serving meat by America’s neighborhood butcher. When Rachael Ray wants to tell her 2.6 million viewers how to shop wisely at the meat counter, she invites veteran butcher Ray Venezia on her show. This handbook condenses Venezia’s expert advice from twenty-five years behind the butcher block, giving every grocery shopper and grill enthusiast the need-to-know information on meat grades, best values, and common cuts for poultry, pork, lamb, veal, and beef. The Everyday Meat Guide includes easy-to-follow illustrations and instructions for the questions butchers are most often asked, plus a handy photo gallery for quick identification at the market. It also Includes Ray Venezia’s popular turkey carving method, as seen in The New York Times, with step-by-step instructions. This refreshingly simplified, confidence-instilling take on the most intimidating part of grocery shopping makes navigating the meat counter truly easy.

Eminently practical and truly trustworthy, The Cook’s Illustrated Meat Book is the only resource you’ll need for great results every time you cook meat. Whether you have burgers, steak, ribs, or roast chicken on the menu shopping for and cooking meat can be confusing, and mistakes can be costly. After 20-plus years of purchasing and cooking beef, pork, lamb, veal, chicken, and turkey, the editors of Cook’s Illustrated understand that preparing meat doesn’t start at the stove it starts at the store. The Cook’s Illustrated Meat Book begins with a 27-page master class in meat cookery, which covers shopping (what’s the difference between natural and organic labels?), storing (just how long should you really refrigerate meat and does the duration vary if the meat is cooked or raw?), and seasoning meat (marinating, salting, and brining). Matching cut to cooking method is another key to success, so our guide includes fully illustrated pages devoted to all of the major cooking methods: sautéing, pan-searing, pan-roasting, roasting, grilling, barbecuing, and more. We identify the best cuts for these methods and explain point by point how and why you should follow our steps and what may happen if you don’t. 425 Bulletproof and rigorously tested recipes for beef, pork, lamb, veal, and poultry provide plenty of options for everyday meals and special occasion dinners and you’ll learn new and better ways to cook favorites such as Pan-Seared Thick-Cut Steak, Juicy Pub-Style Burgers, Weeknight Roast Chicken, Barbecued Pulled Pork, and more. The Cook’s Illustrated Meat Book also includes equipment recommendations (what should you look for in a good roasting pan and is it worth spending extra bucks on a pricey nonstick skillet?). In addition, hundreds of step-by-step illustrations guide you through our core techniques so whether you’re slicing a chicken breast into cutlets or getting ready to carve prime rib the Cook’s Illustrated Meat Book covers all the bases

The definitive guide to buying, cutting, and cooking local and sustainable meats, from the owners of Applestone Meat Company and the founders of Fleisher’s Grass-Fed and Organic Meats The butcher has reemerged in American culture as an essential guide in avoiding the evils of industrial meat—which not only tastes bad, but is also bad for one’s health and for the environment. Joshua and Jessica Applestone, a former vegan and vegetarian, are trailblazers in this arena. They owned Fleisher’s, an old-school butcher shop with a modern-day mission—sourcing and selling only grass-fed and organic meat. The Applestones’ return to the nearly lost tradition of the buying and nose-to-tail carving of whole animals—all humanely raised close to their shop in New York’s Hudson Valley—has helped to make them rising stars in the food world. The Butcher’s Guide to Well-Raised Meat is a compendium of their firsthand knowledge. This unique book—a guide, memoir, manifesto, and reference in one—shares everything one needs to know about well-raised meat, including why pastured meats are so much better than conventional ones and how to perfectly butcher and cook them at home. Readers will learn which cut of steak to look for as an alternative to the popular hanger (of which each steer has only one), how to host a driveway pig roast, and even how to break down an entire lamb (or just butterfly the shoulder)—all with accompanying step-by-step photographs. Differences among breeds and ideal cooking methods for various cuts and offal are covered, and the Applestones’ decoding of misleading industry terminology and practices will help consumers make smarter, healthier purchases that can also help change what’s wrong with meat in America today. Complete with color and black-and-white photographs, illustrations, and more than a dozen recipes, The Butcher’s Guide to Well-Raised Meat is the definitive guide to eating great meat—responsibly.

Long the world's favorite meat, pork has surged in popularity in American kitchens thanks in part to high-protein diets, but mostly because of its adaptability to just about every taste. Whether you like spicy Asian flavors, flavorful pan braises, or light and healthy grills, pork fills the bill. Now Bruce Aidells, America's leading meat expert, presents a guide to pork's endless versatility, with 160 international recipes and cooking and shopping tips. This comprehensive collection contains everything cooks need to know about pork, including how to choose from the many cuts available, how to serve a crowd with ease, and how to ensure moist pork chops and succulent roasts every time. Aidells offers temperature charts for perfect grilling, roasting, and braising, as well as a landmark chapter with step-by-step instructions for home curing. With Bruce Aidells as your guide, you will be making your own bacon, salami, and breakfast sausages with ease. If you are looking to enhance everyday dining, there are recipes here for quick after-work meals, as well as dramatic centerpiece main courses that are sure to impress guests. Bruce Aidells's Complete Book of Pork is a matchless all-in-one guide that will become a kitchen classic.

DIY fever + quality meat mania = old-school butchery revival! Artisan cooks who are familiar with their farmers market are now buying small farm raised meat in butcher-sized portions. Dubbed a rock star butcher by the New York Times, San Francisco chef and self-taught meat expert Ryan Farr demystifies the butchery process with 500 step-by-step photographs, master recipes for key cuts, and a primer on tools, techniques, and meat handling. This visual manual is the first to teach by showing exactly what butchers know, whether cooks want to learn how to turn a primal into familiar and special cuts or to simply identify everything in the case at the market.

Presents hundreds of recipes for meat dishes, including steaks, kebabs, roasts, stews, and chops, using ham, sausage, bison, goat, pork, beef, veal, and lamb.

2021 IACP Award Winner in the General Category Increase your meat counter confidence with this must-have companion for cooking beef, pork, lamb, and veal with more than 300 kitchen-tested recipes. Part cookbook, part handbook organized by animal and its primal cuts, Meat Illustrated is the go-to source on meat, providing essential information and techniques to empower you to explore options at the supermarket or butcher shop (affordable cuts like beef shanks instead of short ribs, lesser-known cuts like country-style ribs, leg of lamb instead of beef tenderloin for your holiday centerpiece), and recipes that make those cuts (72 in total) shine. Meat is a treat; we teach you the best methods for center-of-the-plate meats like satisfying Butter-Basted Rib Steaks (spooning on hot butter cooks the steaks from both sides so they come to temperature as they acquire a deep crust), meltingly tender Chinese Barbecued Roast Pork Shoulder (cook for 6 hours so the collagen melts to lubricate the meat), and the quintessential Crumb-Crusted Rack of Lamb. Also bring meat beyond centerpiece status with complete meals: Shake up surf and turf with Fried Brown Rice with Pork and Shrimp. Braise lamb shoulder chops in a Libyan-style chickpea and orzo soup called Sharba. Illustrated primal cut info at the start of each section covers shopping, storage, and prep pointers and techniques with clearly written essays, step-by-step photos, break-out tutorials, and hundreds of hand-drawn illustrations that take the mystery out of meat prep (tie roasts without wilderness training; sharply cut crosshatches in the fat), so you'll execute dishes as reliably as the steakhouse. Learn tricks like soaking ground meat in baking soda before cooking to tenderize, or pre-roasting rather than searing fatty cuts before braising to avoid stovetop splatters. Even have fun with DIY curing projects.

Demystifies the meat-buying process, meat cuts, and seasoning techniques, and includes more than two hundred recipes

Meat: A Kitchen Education is award-winning author James Peterson’s guide for carnivores, with more than 175 recipes and 550 photographs that offer a full range of meat and poultry cuts and preparation techniques, presented with Peterson’s unassuming yet authoritative style. Instruction begins with an informative summary of meat cooking methods: sautéing, broiling, roasting, braising, poaching, frying, stir-frying, grilling, smoking, and barbecuing. Then, chapter by chapter, Peterson demonstrates classic preparations for every type of meat available from the butcher: chicken, turkey, duck, quail, pheasant, squab, goose, guinea hen, rabbit, hare, venison, pork, beef, veal, lamb, and goat. Along the way, he shares his secrets for perfect pan sauces, gravies, and jus. Peterson completes the book with a selection of homemade sausages, pâtés, terrines, and broths that are the base of so many dishes. His trademark step-by-step photographs provide incomparable visual guidance for working with the complex structure and musculature of meats and illustrate all the basic prep techniques—from trussing a whole chicken to breaking down a whole lamb. Whether you’re planning a quick turkey cutlet dinner, Sunday pot roast supper, casual hamburger cookout, or holiday prime rib feast, you’ll find it in Meat along with: Roast Chicken with Ricotta and Sage; Coq au Vin; Duck Confit and Warm Lentil Salad; Long-Braised Rabbit Stew; Baby Back Ribs with Hoisin and Brown Sugar; Sauerbraten; Hanger Steak with Mushrooms and Red Wine; Oxtail Stew with Grapes; Osso Buco with Fennel and Leeks; Veal Kidneys with Juniper Sauce; Lamb Tagine with Raisins, Almonds, and Saffron; Terrine of Foie Gras; and more. No matter the level of your culinary skills or your degree of kitchen confidence, the recipes and guidance in Meat will help you create scores of satisfying meals to delight your family and friends. This comprehensive volume will inspire you to fire up the stove, oven, or grill and master the art of cooking meat. Winner – 2011 James Beard Cookbook Award – Single Subject Category

“You hold the right book in your hands. Learning from it will be delicious.” —Anthony Bourdain Meat is the centerpiece of celebratory meals and everyday dinners. The quality of the meat—be it beef, lamb, chicken, pork, or even wild game like venison and rabbit—and the way it is prepared has never been so thoroughly important as in today’s world. Fifth- generation butcher Anthony Puharich believes that sustainably raised meat can and should remain the pinnacle of the kitchen: a special and wonderful treat, handled with care by the best farmers and butchers and eaten with respect. In The Ultimate Companion to Meat, he reveals how to make enjoying meat a sublime experience, with more than 100 recipes. Chapters include Birds, Sheep, Pigs, Cattle, and Wild. There is information about breeds, their history, and what they eat and how it affects the taste, as well as what happens on the farm, at the butcher, and finally, in the kitchen. There’s a chapter on technique, including cooking methods and basic butchery. Hundreds of illustrations, diagrams, and stunning photographs make this truly the ultimate guide for anyone who is serious about meat.