Christmas Meat From Percy Dawes Butcher
I hope you all had a marvellous Christmas dear readers and that this post sees you all in fine fettle. Chez Beak it was the usual blend of love, humour, chaos and gluttony; I love having the tribal elders (and the foreign Geordie bird aka Mum-in-law) staying with us for the festive period. It will come as no surprise when I tell you that we have enough food and drink to feed 10K people.
Christmas begins with a hot and cold buffet on Christmas Eve and we love cooking whole ham joints and a juicy beef joint too. We always have a whole turkey and all the trimmings for Christmas lunch and then fillet steak on Boxing Day, except the picky Geordie who has a chicken breast fillet.
This year we got all our supplies from local Alfreton butchers Percy Dawes and I just want to say a massive thank you to the team there, as all the meats were absolutely top notch. Our beef joint cooked beautifully and everyone commented how tender it was, so that kicked things off on a good note.
Christmas morning begins with a good brew and platefuls of sausage and bacon cobs in our nest, and both the bacon and sausage were really yummy so we were happy chappies and chapettes as we opened our presents from Santa.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I think a fresh turkey should come with its giblets so that you can make a proper gravy (and the dog can have a tasty treat), so I was pleased to see a little packet tucked inside the cavity containing all the giblets. The resulting gravy had a lovely glossiness and depth of flavour to it that only comes from giblet juices.
Terrence (as we call the turkey) was a magnificent specimen of his breed and cooked superbly; the flesh was moist and full of taste and I think it was the nicest bird we’ve had for a while. Christmas lunch isn’t Christmas lunch without pigs in blankets and again they were beautiful sausages full of flavour that was set off brilliantly by the streaky bacon encasing them.
Boxing Day arrived and we duly sat down to feast on our Fillet steaks and an expectant hush settled on our dining room as they were brought in on the platter. The room soon filled with murmurs of appreciation, they were sublime steaks; extremely tender, full of taste and just completely wonderful.
For those of you who are wondering why I didn’t specifically mention the ham joint it is because it came out of my freezer and I can’t in all honesty remember quite where I got it from; it may have come from Percy Dawes or it could’ve been purchased at a another local butcher so I erred on cautions side and didn’t give particular credit. However, it was very yummy too :)
Thank you Percy Dawes you made our Christmas magical meat-wise, I really cannot praise you enough :)
All Prices Correct At The Time Of Publishing
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