Swaledale online butchers is a whole-carcass, nose-to-tail butchers that’s headquartered in Yorkshire who focus on making sure they get the maximum yield from every animal they process, making sure they constantly look for improvements in all of their processes to make the end product the best it can possibly be. It’s an approach that allows for traceability and can instil great consumer confidence amongst potential buyers, along with the knowledge that they’ve been operating for a decade and supply many of the regions best places to eat. Delivery is available most days of the week and the packaging is as environmentally sound as possible with a full list of recycling solutions available on their website. I didn’t have anything particular in mind when I had a browse through their site, settling on the Chef’s Choice meat box that came in at a shade under £50 plus delivery.

Ordering from the impressively comprehensive and well laid out website was simple enough and a few days later I was merrily unpacking the produce and trying to come up with a few recipe ideas to take full advantage as the Chef’s Choice box had a few cuts that I hadn’t cooked before. This £48 box from Swaledale Butchers included:

• 1 x 480g pack Lamb Merguez Sausages
• 1 x 480g pack Yorkshire Breakfast Sausages
• 1 x 250g pack Dry-Cured Smoked Streaky Bacon
• 1 x 500g pack Tuscan-style Pork, Fennel and Red Wine Sausagemeat
• 1 x 800g Pork Shoulder Chop
• 1 x 500g pack Marrow Bone Canoes
• 1 x 1 kg Salt Beef
• 1 x 750g Smoked Pig’s Cheek

I’m a pretty confident home cook and happy to have a crack at most things but it’s worth noting there’re plenty of other more common products available too. First up I couldn’t resist the pork shoulder chop for an indulgent mid-week lunch so I quickly set about getting a heavy bottomed pan to a good heat and set it to work with generous seasoning, some garlic and some thyme that I was able to grab from the garden. I ended up cooking it longer than the directions given on the website to get it to an internal temperature I was happy with but the end result was really quite special and easily the rival of similar cuts I’ve been served in restaurants. Some boiled new potatoes given a quick blast in the pan juices did a great job accompanying and were something I was able to pick at for another day or so when I wanted a snack! It’s worth noting that this, amongst a good number of Swaledale Butchers products, has been given an award by the Guild of Fine Food. As a judge for this scheme I know it’s a genuine marker of quality and this certainly earned its 2 stars.

The next morning I assured myself that the breakfast sausages were able to live up to their billing, a feat achieved with the help of some Tracklements Cumberland sauce which was emptying at an impressive rate over the preceding days. Streaky bacon subsequently also proved a winning start to the day. After a respite from all this indulgence the next product I came to was salt beef, which I was preparing for the first time. Following the recipe on their website I braised this in a covered container with onion, garlic and so on for a good number of hours until the strands of meat were coming apart easily before blasting in a hot oven to give the exterior a bit of bite. By this point the fat had rendered beautifully and the meat was arrestingly tender, making it perfect for a hash though I served the majority of it with pickles, poached egg and a sweet mustard ketchup I’m fond of with some CS Sourdough bread as a base.

I made a slight mis-step when I came to cook the pig cheek, over seasoning it and rendering the slow cooked product a little aggressive to be eaten in isolation. Live and learn though, portioned appropriately it works really well as a replacement for Guanciale in Carbonara so is portioned and ready to go in the freezer. I’d lingered a little while over what to do with the Tuscan style sausage meat, trying to think of a way of doing it justice, but eventually settled on forming it to meatballs to slowly cook in a pasta sauce. With the generously-sized meatballs formed and given a good browning in a hot pan I got a bit of colour into some onions in the same pan, got plenty of garlic into the mix too then reduced a bit of red wine before adding tomato puree and a couple of tins of tomatoes as well as some chicken stock and a good splash of Hendo’s. This then sat on the hob, covered, on a low temperature for a couple of hours before having a generous amount of finely chopped parsley stirred through it before I served it over Yorkshire Pasta with a bit more parsley and some shavings of Parmesan. I’d made a bit of effort with this one but the results were hugely more compensation than they deserved with the dish being comfortably the equal of most bistro food (though my plating maybe needs work still…) and easily demonstrating why so many chefs rely on Swaledale Butchers.

It’s impossible to deny that things are hard at the moment and many will dismiss products such as this as an unnecessary luxury. While I certainly don’t deny the difficulties we’re in, what we also need less of is poor quality meat from unsustainable supply chains – we really need to shift attitudes away from the default of chucking cubes of value range supermarket chicken breast into dishes and toward habits that reflect the need to eat less meat from producers who care. This really is something that Swaledale Butchers exemplifies, making it easy to advocate for them with clear attention having been made to every interaction with them. I’m still on the lookout for a local butcher but it’s great to know I can order from Swaledale with confidence too.

(Disclaimer – gifted product)

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Vangarde has been a big part of the York retail scene since its opening in 2014, notably bringing John Lewis to York, and has recently been the site of great activity with the addition of the LNER community stadium and a new Cineworld with the capability to show films in IMAX (well, when cinema going becomes viable again anyway) along with a few other leisure options. As the months go on and we see these facilities start to be used to the capacity for which they were intended then a broad food offering will only strengthen the destinations appeal, making Estabulo Rodizio York a more notable addition to the site than most.

The Rodizio style dining on offer relies on servers circulating with hefty skewers of meat which are carved at the table for you to work on at the pace you desire, dictated by a traffic light system to stem the flow of meat. The other main attraction at this style of restaurant is invariably the salad bar, offering as many visits as you like in normal times though now facilitated by making your choices from a tick sheet to prompt delivery. While getting hands on with the salad bar might be out of the question at the moment, it remains a striking central feature to the restaurant, which has been attractively fitted out with lots of plain wood and splashes of colour. I gather from my dining companion that it’s markedly different from the Giraffe that was previously resident on the site.

Service was efficient and friendly and marked by the kind of immediacy you achieve by eliminating the need to choose from a menu, what with the meats readily circulating at all times, so we were up and running in no time. The £18.95 lunch offering comes in with 8 different cuts of meat (3 beef, 3 pork and 1 each of lamb and chicken) along with salad bar access. We merrily checked off a decent proportion of the salad offerings and relaxed into the circulating meat, so to speak, by turning our traffic light cards to green. The servers were generous and chatty as they shared out their wares, which were succulent and compelling. All the meats were well seasoned the varying sized chunks on the skewer had cooked at rates differing enough to let you dictate how rare you’d like your meat. The salad bar options perhaps weren’t as compelling as to be an attraction in their own right as some destinations of this ilk manage, but were comfortably good enough to stand as addendum to the main attraction, amongst which the lamb and gammon stuck out, the lamb in particular being well rested and benefitting from a good kiss of mint.

As a child of Milton Keynes (nearly 20 years in York before you question my credentials) retail parks have been a significant part of my life experience and I seldom recall memorable dining experiences amongst them. Most shopping hubs feature the same repeating groups of establishments who seem keen not to distinguish themselves for fear of introducing a new experience. Estabulo offers something more compelling than that crowd while remaining accessible and a pleasant addition to a day’s shopping without needing to be a focus in itself.

Disclaimer: No charge was made for this meal. Opinions are impartial.

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Established in Ripon in 1867, Appleton’s are best-known for their handmade pork pies, which have locals queuing round Ripon’s market square, and are beloved by Prince Charles.

The anniversary pie is made in a traditional game pie mould with hand raised pastry, locally sourced rose veal and York ham produced from Appleton’s own pigs, which are reared on the family farm in Ripon.

Last year Appleton’s opened a shop in York, returning a traditional pork butcher to the city walls for the first time in years. Since opening, the family behind Appleton’s now rear their own Yorkshire pigs on their farm and have produced their first home reared York Ham. Dry salted in two stages and air dried for two months before being cooked, it’s the quintessential British ham, with a distinctive pear shape and delicious fatty covering.

Owner Anthony Sterne said “Reaching our 150^th anniversary is a very proud moment for Appleton’s. Despite the sad decline of many butcher’s shops in Britain in the past few years, we are lucky to be supported by fantastic loyal customers, who come to Appleton’s for high welfare local meat, prepared with care and great service. We have created the anniversary pie using a recipe resurrected from the Appleton’s vaults, and we hope many of our customers will join in our celebrations and try it this week.”

Here’s the recipe if you fancy trying the pie for yourself

For an oval pie mould measuring 9cm deep, 22cm long and 12cm wide:

Ingredients

Pastry
570g plain flour
270g lard
1 heaped teaspoon salt
170ml boiling hot water

Filling
500g Boiled York Ham
500g Veal Shoulder
300g fatty pork belly (rindless)
1 onion finely chopped and sweated in a knob of butter.
1 sprig sage leaves
1 tsp mace
Salt and pepper

Jelly
If you can get a couple of pigs trotters add them to the ham cooking water with an onion, carrot and bouquet garni. Skim the surface during cooking to remove any scum and strain once the ham has been removed. Once cooled this should set.

Alternatively add gelatine leaves or powder to the ham stock according to the packet instructions once the ham has been removed and the stock strained.

You’ll need about ½ pint of jelly for the pie.

To make the pastry crumb 100g of lard into the plain flour and salt using your fingertips. Melt the remaining 170g lard in a saucepan over a low flame. It should be hot enough that when you flick a drop of water into the lard it sizzles. Boil 170ml water in a separate pan. Using a tabletop mixer fitted with a dough hook (or a large heatproof bowl and wooden spoon) gradually add the hot lard and boiling water to the flour mixing vigorously until all the water is thoroughly mixed in.

The pastry should cool for a good hour before using although it’s best not letting it get too cold.

To make the filling chop everything up into small pieces (1cm cubes) and mix together.

To assemble the pie take ¾ of the pastry and roll into a ball. Place in the bottom of the pie tin and carefully but firmly flatten out over the bottom and sides of the tin using your fingers. Try and ensure an even thickness and plug any cracks with more pastry. The ends of the pastry should hang over the lip of the tin. Now put the tin in the fridge for 20 minutes for the pastry to harden.

Meanwhile roll out the remaining ¼ of the pastry to form the lid.

Put the pie filling into the tin using wet hands to stop it sticking and tamping down to avoid any air pockets. The filling should be domed above the sides of the tin. Brush the pastry rim with water and place the lid on top. Cut off excess pastry and crimp. Decorate if you like and cut in a hole in which you can pour the jelly. Brush with an egg yolk and water glaze.

Bake at 190^oC for 20 minutes then turn the oven down to 160 ^oC for a further 30 minutes until the pie is an even, golden colour.

Cool for at least 30 mins before carefully taking out of the pie tin. Cool for a further hour at least, before filling with warm jelly.

Terms and conditions of the free prize draw

To enter, you must: like the York on a Fork Facebook page and like and comment on the York on a Fork post that mentions this free prize draw. In your comment, you must tag another Facebook user.

Entries must be made between 12.01am Monday 14th August 2017 and 23.59 Friday 18th August 2017.

Entrants must be resident in the UK and be available to meet Ben Thorpe at Appleton’s Butchers Lendal week commencing 21st August 2017 to collect their prize in person and be photographed.

The prize is a voucher for £50 to be used against a purchase or purchases at Appleton’s Butchers Lendal by voucher end date. Not to be used in conjunction with any other offer. No cash alternative.

Winner selected at random by Ben Thorpe from eligible entrants on Saturday 19th August and the winner will be informed by direct message on Facebook and their name will be published on York on a Fork’s Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Entries will not be accepted from employees of Appleton’s or of Lemonzest PR.

Promoter is Ben Thorpe, trading as York on a Fork.

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The Blues Bar is a live music venue a short walk from Harrogate station with a decent selection of real ales and a space upstairs that previously offered Egyptian food. As we arrived early on a Wednesday evening, it was inhabited by musicians starting to get set up for the evening and post-work drinkers apparently looking for somewhere uncomplicated to smooth the rough edges left by the day’s travails. We hustled ourselves upstairs to “The Green Room” ready to occupy a booth. I quickly hustled back down the stairs when I realised that’s where the conveniences are, something that drew recent criticism on a well-known review site. Each to their own.

The Andy Annat at The Blues Bar menu promised all manner of carnivore’s treasures, but a surprising number of intriguing vegetarian options too. You’ll have to excuse me from sharing the menu detail here, but as it’s still under development it’d be potentially mis-leading. I don’t doubt the dishes we had will remain though (they better had do!). Starting with light bites of salmon rolled around cream cheese on crispy toast bites topped with a smear of caviar, we quickly decided that deciding was something we wouldn’t be able to do. Delegating responsibility for choice to our host, we awaited our first dish: buffalo wings served with three sauces of varying spice. These were authentically impossible to eat with any dignity and beautifully tender while the dipping sauces all gave their own character to the bite. Even the hottest, about which we were cautioned, didn’t sacrifice flavour for aggression. Taking full advantage of the essential finger bowl, we girded our loins for the main event.

A lengthy plank was slid down the centre of our table after a decorous pause and we forced ourselves to take stock of the marvellous situation in which we’d found ourselves. Beef rib, lamb kleftico and veal rump formed the spine of the proposal while chips, pork scratchings and salads teased our attention from the sidelines. Unsure where to start, I popped a pork scratching in my mouth to buy thinking time and immediately felt assured my sky-high expectations would be met: taking a mere 16 hours to produce and without a hint of the cloying fat found in their pub-based brethren, the morsel melted away leaving a delightful pork flavour. Chips dusted in bacon powder were light, and in retrospect, I’d have held onto the sauces from the buffalo wings to give them another dimension.

When photographs were done and self-control exhausted, we dived on the veal rump. Accompanied by Mediterranean vegetables that were char-grilled to perfection, the meat was wonderfully tender; neither too powerfully smoked or cooked beyond a delicate pink, the texture was simply beyond comparison. It’s not exactly a spoiler to reveal that we’d been presented with a lot of food, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to hear there were leftovers to take home. I think Mrs YoaF articulated it best when she took a bite roughly two hours later and just started laughing as she shouted “Holy ****! It’s not even hot any more, so how can it be that tender?!”.

The lamb, seasoned with garlic butter, hit similar chords of reverence as we marvelled at the texture. Perhaps the flavour wasn’t of the same revelatory standard of the veal, but in this company, that’s nothing at all to complain about. The meat was lean and justified its presence beyond doubt.

Of the three meats, I’ve waited to try and describe the beef short rib until last. I could trot out the usual superlatives about unctuous sauce, a beautifully smoked crust, meat falling apart even before the knife seems to come into contact with it and so on and it would be entirely true. It wouldn’t do it justice though. Suffice to say that the sauce perfectly balanced slightly bitter and slightly sweet notes and was of perfect consistency. This is a dish that will stay with me for a long time and form the basis of many, many recommendations.

To finish, we had a lemon pannacotta, about which I was able to finally pick fault. It was too big. I commented on social media afterwards that if your only complaint about a meal is that you can’t finish the dessert, then you’ve probably had a pretty decent evening. Killing time before the train home (only £8.40 return) we had a lengthy chat with Andy about his ambitions for Andy Annat at The Blues Bar. Taking his butchery skills as a chance to minimise produce costs, he wants this to remain as accessibly priced as possible (indeed the menu we looked at had mains starting at ten pounds) and not become exclusive. Sourcing great produce, training staff well and maintaining a friendly atmosphere while the food offers a sense of fun will be key to maintaining the success of this place, something I don’t doubt for a second it will be. It was a tremendous pleasure to visit and the second funds and schedule coincide, I’ll be paying a repeat visit.

Disclaimer: While this meal was complementary, all the opinions expressed are impartial. I was accompanied by Claire from http://greedywordsmith.com who said “Andy Annat’s food does not disappoint. The menu is carefully balanced to provide appetising options for both the committed carnivore and their vegetarian companions. I can’t comment on the visit without urging visitors to consider the incredible beef rib and its dark, alluring sauce. I will definitely be making a repeat visit.”

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