Farm Butchering Day

We haven't killed a beast for ourselves for a long time. We usually have some left over from the markets so we don't really need to do it ourselves. However, we've had a dexter steer that we were given by some friends. They didn't know what to do with him and didn't want to eat him themselves, so they thought that we may be able to put him through the markets. Well.....he was quite a bit older than he looked and we weren't really sure how old, and to top it off he was cut proud. This is a term used when the castration wasn't successfully done and they are a kind of bull. We had no idea what he would taste like, so we decided to do him ourselves and if he was too tough we could just cut all up for dog food. And....Edmund wants to learn how to kill and cut up a beast, so we thought we'd do it.

After two weeks hanging in our coldroom - today was the day. We cooked up a bit of topside, which we use for steak, but most people don't! It was tasty and tender, so after a sigh of relief we got into it.

Ah.....to have steak again! We never have that left over from the markets! This is the rib fillet and it's quite a small steak, obviously because he was a small animal.

As we were doing it ourselves, we could play around and try some different things.

Bone in Shoulder and Bone in Brisket. Meat cooked on the bone is so much tastier! We also kept one of the shin pieces as a whole piece with the bone in......think osso bucco uncut!

These Mini Roasts were Edmund's idea - one is garlic and herb and the other is Moroccan flavoured.

We did mince and sausages. 

To give an example of how small this fella was, a few weeks ago we helped cut up a bullock of Kim's brothers. We did 65kg of sausages. Today we did 15kg's of sausages. We like plain and simple, so we did herb, garlic and chilli and some of Brad's homemade wine.

I like to mix the seasonings into the meat before we mince. I add the liquid after we mince (in this case it was wine, but often it's water) and before we fill the skins.

I only learnt how to tie sausages a few weeks ago helping out west, so mine are a bit uneven.

Our tradition on butchering day is to have rib bones for lunch, usually this follows a breakfast of offal, but we had the liver and bacon, heart and curly gut two weeks ago when we killed the steer. Today we had topside steak and eggs for breakfast. The rib bones I cooked in the oven with some herbs and a bit of sauce over the top. We also had mince patties, which was the mince left in the mincer after we finished the sausages (you can't get all that out). So a very meat filled day......Vegie soup is what we are going to have for tea!

Oh and you may be wondering what curly gut is - it's what it sounds like, the intestines! Kim gives them a very good clean out and then we cut them into small bits and fry until very crispy(think pork crackling).

On a final note. I have just started a Facebook page called Lucy's Kitchen. If you like hearing about food and what I cook on a daily basis, you may like to follow it. Hopefully this link  will work, otherwise search for Lucy's Kitchen - there is a few of them! Mine has sausages as the background photo!