Australia-Alternative cheaper cuts of meat.

AUSTRALIA-ALTERNATIVE CHEAP CUTS OF MEAT.

When you visit the butcher do you leave clutching a bag of the same old sausages, mince and steak and holding a wallet that’s a whole lot lighter?

If so, it’s time to bone up on beef. The average Aussie chews through more than 34kg of beef each year, and it’s likely you could be roping lots more bargains if only you knew what to chase down.

Eating meat: Your guide to cheap cuts

’’If you buy right and know how to cook you can buy a lot of good meat at a reasonable price,’’ says Duncan Allsop, owner of Allsop & England Organic Butchers at Coorparoo.

Allsop is one of a dwindling band of butchers who still ’’break down’’ their beef rather than unwrap ready-to-cook portions of ’’carton beef’’.

A pioneer of paddock-to-plate before the term was even coined, he has been offering organic meat for almost two decades and says it’s all part of the butcher’s job to provide advice on how best to cook particular cuts.

’’There’s not much knowledge out there,’’ he says. ’’I had one woman the other day asking about gravy beef for the barbecue. She didn’t know it was a stewing meat and thought it would be good to do something different.’’

Allsop sells every oxtail that comes into his shop to his older customers but says many abattoirs these days don’t even bother on-selling the oxtails, which then go to fertiliser.

’’Thirty years ago you’d put out a tray of steak and kidney in the window and it was an article that used to go very well. Now nobody is interested,’’ he says.

Despite the popularity of beef cheeks on many fine dining menus around town, Allsop says he has sold less than a handful in the 30 years the shop has been open.

Meat & Livestock Australia’s Andrew Cox agrees many traditional cooking skills and techniques have been lost.

’’Everyone knows what to do with the primary or sweet cuts like steak, but when it comes to chuck and shin, that knowledge has gone,’’ he says. ’’It’s made it harder to sell.’’

Cox says many butchers also now have a meal rather than a cut-of-meat focus. Instead of offering specific cuts of meat for casseroling labelled clearly as shin beef or chuck steak, they will offer generic ’’casserole meat’’.

So buyers often don’t know exactly what they’re eating - or what to ask for if they decide to shop around.

MLA marketing manager Lachlan Bowtell says the MLA is trying to re-educate consumers on the benefits of lesser-known cuts. ’’Cuts such as chuck steak are great for casseroles,’’ he says.

’’People are not buying a lot of chuck but it’s one of the best cuts to braise, not just for traditional red-wine casseroles but also for curries. Tagines are fantastic with this cut in particular.’’

Bowtell says while people do know about round steak they often bypass it because they have had bad results through over-cooking it in the past.

Round steak, he says, is best sliced into strips and cooked very quickly in something such as a stir-fry, or else braised slowly. Or it can be fried or flash-grilled.

Oyster blade is another budget-priced cut customers don’t value highly enough.

’’It’s a fantastic cut for a steak. You just treat it as you would sirloin or rump,’’ he says. ’’ It’s one of the tastiest cuts going. In the US it’s known as flatiron steak and it’s one of the most popular barbecue cuts because it’s so damned tasty.’’

It sells for about $16 a kilogram.

For those seeking more budget steak, Allsop also suggests Y-bone, which he calls the ’’poor man’s T-Bone’’.

’’It’s a cheaper meal and you can barbecue it but still get the flavour off the bone,’’ he says.

Y-bone costs about $12.90 a kilogram instead of $26-plus for T-bone.

But Bowtell cautions the quality can be variable, depending on where you buy.

’’It’s a cheap cut but not always good. I wouldn’t buy it and throw it on the barbie without marinating it first,’’ he said.

Intercostals are yet another less well known option Bowtell says customers should definitely try to get their hands on.

’’If your local butcher is buying in body beef you can get these,’’ he says. ’’It’s a really good product. The meat comes from in between the ribs. But they are nearly all exported, packed down, frozen and sent overseas to Korean barbecues.’’

Bowtell says he’s an advocate of the move towards selling carton beef because he believes it improves quality and gives the butchers more control over what they sell.

It also solves occupational health and safety issues involved in heaving 70kg-80kg carcasses around.

’’You don’t need to know how to break it (beef) down, you need to know how to use it,’’ he argues..

Cartons, he says, shouldn’t mean a reduction in the variety of meat available because butchers can order in anything from ox heart to tongue and brains.

But he admits that often there is a psychological barrier when it comes to butchers buying in certain secondary cuts.

’’They think, `my customers won’t buy that’ but when it’s in there it sells well,’’ he said.

If you want to make your dollar _ and Australian beef _ go further, let your butcher know there is a demand for more than steak, snags and mince.