Meat Dishes by the Best Butchers

Chef Robert Wiedmaier gives butchering demos at the Butcher’s Block in Alexandria, Virginia. At his restaurant next door, Brabo, he serves elegant dishes, like this veal chop. To make the wine sauce even more complex, use demiglace (concentrated veal stock) instead of beef stock and flour. Demiglace is available from dartagnan.com.

There seems to be a daunting amount of onions in this Portuguese-inspired dish by Stanley Lobel of Lobel’s Prime Meats in New York City, but with the bacon they cook down to a wonderful, smoky jam surrounding supertender beef.

Coffee and prime rib seem like unlikely partners, but Ryan Farr’s recipe reveals they both have an earthy quality that makes them a natural match. Just be sure to scrape off any excess coffee rub from the meat before serving.

Robert Wiedmaier of the Butcher’s Block in Alexandria, Virginia adds a little bit of cumin to the garlicky marinade on these chops, which highlights the lamb’s slightly gamey flavor. He accompanies each serving with half a head of roasted garlic; the sweet caramelized cloves are delicious on their own or blended into the silky white bean puree he serves as a side dish.

Stanley Lobel’s dish is inspired by Germany’s Pfalz region, where cooks braise sauerkraut with onions, apples, seasonings, a touch of sugar and a little of the region’s Riesling wine.

Jessica and Joshua Applestone of Fleisher’s in Kingston and Rhinebeck, New York like to brine locally raised Berkshire pork belly for a few hours in a mixture of juniper berries, orange zest and peppercorns to help season the meat and keep it juicy. Jessica recommends cooking it simply with a sprig of rosemary. The brine works well for a number of pork cuts, including rib chops, loin chops (bone-in or boneless), tenderloin and ribs.

To showcase the deeply flavorful grass-fed beef that’s sold at Fleisher’s in upstate New York, Jessica and Josh Applestone make a simple roast beef using any number of cuts, including rib loin (prime rib), top round or a tied sirloin tip. The roast—deliciously crusted with horseradish and black peppercorns—is perfect hot out of the oven, but it’s also amazing cold on a sandwich: Thinly slice the roast beef and serve it on white bread with horseradish mayonnaise and juicy tomatoes.

Butcher Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats in San Francisco likes to brine fresh ham in a chile-spiked liquid. The pork skin turns wonderfully crackly in the oven.

Tanya Cauthen of Belmont Butchery in Richmond, Virginia, likes flavoring supremely tender braised lamb with a North African spice blend that includes cumin and fennel seeds. Lamb shanks are great for serving at dinner parties, since they look so dramatic, but lamb stew meat—cut from the shoulder or the leg—is equally delicious. Or, for a less gamey flavor, substitute beef short ribs.

Butcher Tom Mylan of the Meat Hook in Brooklyn flavors his chili with three kinds of dried chiles: fruity guajillos, smoky anchos and a New Mexico chile. After he soaks the chiles in water to plump them, he blends them to form a silky puree, which gives the chili a complex flavor.

At Thai restaurants, Tom Mylan of the Meat Hook in Brooklyn, New York usually requests a double order of larb (or laab), an addictive appetizer of ground meat spiked with chiles, lime juice and fish sauce and served with lettuce leaves for wrapping.

This dish by Stanley Lobel of Lobel’s Prime Meats in New York City combines briny cockles and smoky pork—a traditional pairing in southern Portugal’s Alentejo region—though the fresh red chiles in the sauce here add a distinctive twist (for a sweeter variation, use red bell peppers instead).

Tia Harrison breaks down a pig each week at Avedano’s and finds making stew a versatile way to use cuts like pork shoulder, shanks and belly. Here she cooks the stew with pleasantly bitter ancho chiles.

Humanely raised veal is becoming more widely available, at Avedano’s in San Francisco and at other top butcher shops. The head butcher at Avedano’s, Tia Harrison, recommends choosing veal shoulder or rump roast, which are more economical than other cuts of veal but still delicious. Harrison likes to braise them; here, canned fire-roasted tomatoes give the dish a smoky flavor.