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North Americans are nonetheless consuming meat, though much less of it, and leaning extra towards poultry somewhat than beef and pork. This is partly as a result of extra persons are selecting various plant-based sources of protein like beans (and we’ve got some scrumptious recipes like this potato salad with fava beans). It’s partly as a result of poultry is cheaper and more healthy than pink meat. (The demand for pork stays regular, in response to knowledge supplied by Carlisle Technology, a Canadian {hardware} and software program producer targeted on the meat business.)
And it’s partly as a result of costs of meat are climbing up. It’s getting tougher to price range meat into the weekly meal rotation.
You don’t wish to surrender meat solely, however what are the most effective methods of having fun with your favourite protein with out busting your price range?
One approach is to hitch or create a meat co-op with like-minded buddies, neighbors, or folks responding to a neighborhood advert you place out. This is the place a pair, or a bunch, or a number of households purchase a complete animal, or half-animal collectively, dividing the meat, offal, and bones by pre-agreement.
That’s nice in the event you reside in the correct of space. A pal dwelling in Calgary, Canada, tells me she and her husband share an entire lamb with the neighbors each spring. But for folks like me, who get their meat on the butcher’s part of the grocery store, that’s hardly an answer.
Consider these methods. The first: keep away from waste.
Bones, whether or not uncooked or left over from a roast, make a base for tasty and nutritious broth.
Surplus fats on the physique of the fowl will be frozen and saved as much as render down, making golden liquid shmaltz. I don’t advocate rendering beef, sheep, or pork fats, although, particularly in the event you reside in an house. Rendering makes pungent odors. Some render their shmaltz outdoor on their grill. I simply maintain the home windows open.
Freeze any offal (gizzards, livers, hearts) for later cooking; or in the event you actually don’t fancy consuming it, give it to your cat.
Cook parts not so massive that leftovers will sit within the fridge till they go dangerous. Unless you’re intentionally planning on leftovers for a second spherical later within the week. Also go for recipes that use comparatively little meat whereas satisfying the craving, like our Lachmacun, Turkish meat-topped flatbreads.
The second concept, tied to avoiding waste, is to protect the meat. When your favourite meat’s at a very good value, purchase it up by all means, however use each little bit of what you purchase. Anything surplus, freeze.
Freezing is the simplest technique to protect animal meat or fish. To freeze efficiently, you could give no likelihood for air or moisture to invade, which dangers harm to your meat from freezer burn and lack of vitamins, to not point out taste. And it’s straightforward sufficient to freeze meat safely.
You’ll want:
Butcher paper
Masking tape
Aluminum foil
A sharpie or pen for labeling
Wrap the piece of recent meat in butcher’s paper with the waxed aspect touching the meat.
Tape it shut with masking tape.
Wrap the bundle with foil.
Label the bundle with the contents and the date written on a chunk of masking tape.
You can even use sturdy industrial freezer luggage, squeezing all of the air out earlier than sealing the contents. This is much less dependable than wrapping meat as detailed above;, though sensible for dealing with meat in small items, i.e. floor meat and chunks of fats. I recommend cooking meat frozen in a bag effectively earlier than the utmost time allowed within the chart beneath.
Cooked meat is protected to freeze. Refrigerate it promptly after it’s cooled down; you possibly can maintain it within the fridge, tightly lined, as much as 2 days earlier than freezing. Better is to freeze it instantly after cooking and cooling.
Always label frozen meat. If you’re like me, you’ll by no means bear in mind how lengthy that batch of meat balls has been sitting in there.
Lengths of time your meat will preserve high quality within the freezer:
Bacon and Pancetta: 3 months
Chops: 6 months
Ground meats: 4 months
Organ meats: 4 months
Roasts: 1 12 months
Sausage: 3 months
Steaks: 8 months
Raw poultry fats: 6 months
Rendered fats: 1 12 months
Further studying on trendy methods of preserving meals: the concise, very readable Preserving Everything, by Leda Meredith, Countryman Press.
