Albert Matthews Butchers - Bury

Writing this blog, there are many people I come across, working in all walks of the food sector. There are charming front of house staff, knowledgeable bar specialists and creative chefs - but there's nothing that impresses and excites me more, than someone with passion.

Finding a passionate individual or company is what reminds me why I love food. Luckily for me, I've found another.

Winning an award

Albert Matthews is an award winning butchers based in the historic Bury market, with a pedigree as impressive as they produce they sell. Set up in 1935 by Albert Matthews, from the word go they have only ever sourced local, rare and traditional British breeds.

Albert Matthews built strong links with local producers, many of whom the business still uses today. Albert's dedication to good husbandry, high welfare and the continuation of traditional, rare breeds saw him purchase a farm and abattoir in Cheshire, grow the business to be one of the most successful in the region and become a top supplier to the high end restaurant trade.
 

Bury stall

In the past few years Chris and Sarah Matthews, grandchildren of the great man himself, have set up shop in Bury Market, to bring local, rare breed, quality produce back to the customer. But let's stop talking about history and talk about the food.

The first thing I like about Albert Matthews is there dedication to explaining their produce to you. They are so proud of their producers in fact, that there are pages on their website dedicated to where they source from, why, what feed the animals eat and their high welfare standards. If you go into the shop, the customer service and the knowledge is second to none.

Beef aging

The stand out item I tried was the 56 day, dry aged Galloway sirloin. Yeah, I just said 56 days - that's eight weeks for you struggling with the maths. Dry aged beef is what you want and is a true sign of quality and care on the part of the butcher. Hung on the bone in their cool store, the beef is allowed to age naturally, taking on a dark hue as the enzymes in the meat break down the tough fibres and the beneficial bacteria help develop an amazing taste. Hung like this, the meat loses a lot of water and weight - good for the customer, less profit for the butcher, hence why you won't find dry aged steak in your supermarket. Those wet, bright red lumps on the shelves? Not aged at all (see how much your steak shrinks as it cooks = water loss). Supermarket packs stating 28 days aged? Unless you see the magical word 'dry', the meat will have been sealed in its pack and left for 28 days; no bacteria or enzymes can make their way through that shrink wrapped plastic.


Meat lesson over - the steak was, quite literally, the best steak I have ever tasted. And I'm not exaggerating. The smell during cooking was intensely beefy, akin to a really good stock mixed in with some frying dripping. The taste was intense (I'd cooked them with the merest hint of salt and nothing else); deeply savoury, umami filled, the beefiest beef. To top it all off, the meat was silky soft - think fillet softness, but with a the flavour of a harder working cut. It's taken Albert Matthew's quite a while to develop this product and you can tell.

Another winner was the Black Strap Bacon; rare breed (Saddleback/Old Spot), slow grown, dry cured and then cured with molasses. The bacon is deeply porky, the sweetness of the pork shining through and then a big smoky/bitter hit off the molasses. Thick cut, no water/white ming seeping out - the ultimate bacon sarnie bacon.

I'd asked Chris if he could find me some wild rabbit (if your rabbit packet ain't sating wild, it's reared in appalling conditions a la battery farmed hens. Just so you know) and one of my favourite meats, pheasant. This was no problem for a company with strong links across Lancashire, Cumbria and the Forest of Bowland.

I also tried the diced heather fed lamb, which made a great hot pot and had a beautiful sweetness, plus two minces, pork and beef. It's been a long time since I cooked with mince and have memories
of buying the cheap stuff when I was a student; greasy, flaccid, grey, tasteless meat. Both the Albert Matthews minces had a good fat/meat ratio and the resulting mince (before the addition of any other ingredients) had a fine flavour (yes, I was eating mince straight from the pan, I'm not ashamed), which still shined through on the addition of other ingredients.

Because I'm a greedy guts I also tried the beef topside (tasty roast) and the Goosnargh corn-fed chicken supremes - oh my gosh these were a) tasty b) stayed moist and c) massive, great value for money.

I'm a convert to Albert Matthews - I care about the provenance/welfare of my meat, so it's great for conscious carnivores like me and all the produce is top quality and great tasting. The good news for lazy people like me, or those that live a little too far from Bury, is that they have a wonderful website, which has all the finer details of their producers, their products and some cracking offers; my favourite being the Choose Your Own Box (comes in totally recyclable packaging) - a good value box of a selection of different meats that you choose yourself; like a meaty veg box but without getting items you don't want that rot at the back of your fridge for a year.

So get off your bottom/get your laptop out; stop buying cheap, mass produced, grey tasting meat from the supermarket and get some passion in your mouth.

Albert Matthews Butchers, The Meat and Fish Hall, Bury Market, Murray Road, Bury, Lancashire BL9 0BJ - sales@albertmatthews.com - 0161 341 0528 - www.albertmatthews.com - Facebook - Twitter

Please note, I was given my box of meat for free, but am under no obligation to say anything nice - it's just hard to say something bad against wonderful, passionate people.

Bolton Market

Foodies have long heralded the farmers' market; fair trade jute bag in hand, chatting to the suppliers over ears of freshly harvested corn and handmade gluten free cupcakes.

However we need to remember that the raise of the farmers' market is not just a modern phenomenon, but an extension of the traditional market that has been the mainstay of the populace's shopping experience for the past thousand years.

Bolton market is very much a product of the town's industrial past, housed in a Victorian market hall it's all tile, brick and iron. The town has held the charter to hold a market since 1251 and I can happily say this tradition is still going strong.

Last Saturday I did my usual shop at the market accompanied by the excellent food photographer, Christelle Vaillant (whose wonderful photos illustrate this edition of the blog - more of her work can be found on http://easydoesitrecipes.blogspot.com/). We spent a very enjoyable morning at the market, which won praise indeed from Christelle who hasn't seen such a market outside of her native France.

We've started shopping at the market after becoming increasingly depressed wandering round brightly illuminated isles, being over-charged for intensively packaged shiny fruits in the supermarket, or not being able to find much on the farmers' market in our price range - lovely for a spot of browsing or picking up something specialist; but not great at filling the shopping basket for the whole week.

Bolton's a usual mixed market, split in two; with general wares in one section and food in the other. You'll find the food market by following the fresh fishy smell and shouts of "seabass for for a fiver." Get ready for your senses to be assaulted as you're greeted on all sides by amazing sights, smells and sounds.

First stop is the fish stalls - there's a great selection at HJ Grundy; a good looking stall with spanking fresh fish. There's always the usuals, including staples such as cod and seabass, but it's also a great place to pick up the unusual. Last Saturday there were razor clams, live brown crab, prawns the size of my forearm, catfish and many others I've neither seen nor tasted before. The staff at Grundy's will clean, fillet and give you any bones of the fish you want. They're also very helpful when asking questions about what's fresh and when certain catches have come in. AND they stock local potted shrimps (Southport), something I stock up on at every opportunity!

On to Meat and Poultry for large, free range duck eggs and then over to Choice Cuts where you can get a good big slab of pork belly including nipple, a proper black pudding (Bury no less) and a cheeky chat with the guys on the stall. There's a handful of meat and fish suppliers here, so there's always plenty of choice for anything you need, including pigs feet and boiling chickens. As Bolton has a large ethnic community there are also a couple of Halal meats stalls with one specialising in super fresh Halal offal.

After the meat and fish you pop through to the fruit, veg and bakery section; which really is a riot of colour. Browse amongst the stalls for the best fruit and veg - most providers have grown savvy to the current localism trend and now mark on whether the stock is from the UK and even where about it's from; one of the stalls has some cracking Hesketh tomatoes at the moment. There doesn't seem to be one veg stall that's better than the others; it's a case of browse them all, picking up the freshest and the best. However there is a stall right at the back that's overflowing with chillies, fresh dates, Asian vegetables and humongous bunches of gorgeous herbs adding their heady fragrance to an already mind blowing shopping experience.

Special mention needs to be paid to Purdons cheese stall, selling a wide range of European cheeses and a large selection of local ones - this week I purchased a cracking Garstang Blue, which I decided upon with the help of staff (who kindly let me try quite a lot of samples).

Also worth a mention is Unsworth Deli, a places where real bread reigns supreme and you can pick up specialities like proper pancetta - not the flabby, little, flavoured lardons you pick up at the big four; but  a whole piece of cured meat off which you're sliced a lovely hunk. Plus the boy is very happy with their selection of pies (well he is Northern).

And last but not least Sweet Treats, found in the general side of the market. It’s a small, white sweet shop, but the only place you can find cream soda, plus you can put in a request for something you can’t find anymore and they’ll try to track it down for you. It’s recognisable by the yellow trays of Swizzles Matlow sweets reminiscent of the corner shop when you were eight.

Bolton Market's a brilliant alternative to the weekly big shop, you can sort all you food out but can't get everything there (such as toiletries); there's plenty of choice, the food's fresh and it's good to know that your money stays local.

Ps - Bolton Market has a market kitchen where they host cookery demos, even the Hairy Bikers have cooked there and they won Best Indoor Retail Market 2010. Even more reason to pay them a visit!

Pps - there's no parking at the market, however park at Sainsbury's on Trinity Street, parking's free for two hours. The train station is a five minute walk from the market and there's plenty of buses running in from the surrounding area.

Bolton Market is open Tue, Thurs, Fri and Sat - 9am-5pm. There's a second hand section on Friday and a car boot on Sunday.

Bolton Market, Ashburner Street, Bolton BL1 1TQ.

All photography in this blog has been taken by Christelle Vaillant, Food Photographer - check out more of her wonderful work here and here.