The supermarket case shows you the same six cuts: scotch, rump, mince, sausages, chicken breast, bacon. That’s about 30% of an animal. The rest gets ground into pet food, exported, or just thrown away.
That’s a problem for two reasons. One, it’s wasteful — an animal gave its life and 70% of it doesn’t even make it to a plate. Two, the cuts that get discarded are often the most interesting, most flavourful, and most affordable.
What “nose to tail” means at Morpeth
We use as much of every animal as possible. That means the cabinet at any given time has cuts you won’t see at Coles:
- Beef cheeks — the slow-cook holy grail
- Ox tail — rich, gelatinous, soul-food
- Lamb neck — the cheap cut Greek grandmothers swear by
- Beef hammer — bone-in shin, marrow inside
- Pork hocks — pea-and-ham soup gold
- Beef liver, lambs fry, lamb hearts — iron-packed, dirt-cheap, properly delicious
- Marrow bones, bones for stock — the secret behind every great soup
Why bother
Better cooking. A lot of the world’s great food is built on these cuts. Italian osso bucco, Mexican lengua tacos, French steak frites with marrow on toast, British steak and kidney pie, Korean ox tail soup. Cut these out and the cookbook gets thin.
Better value. Beef cheeks at $32.99/kg deliver more flavour and more meal-energy than scotch fillet at twice the price. They just take time.
Better ethics. If an animal’s going to be raised and slaughtered, it deserves to be eaten. Sending 70% of it to landfill or rendering plants is, to put it bluntly, gross.
Where to start if you’ve never gone past the obvious
Start with beef cheeks. Brown them, braise in red wine and stock at 130°C for 4 hours. Serve over polenta. You’ll feel like you’ve been holding out on yourself for years.
Then try lamb shanks, then ox tail. By the time you’ve done all three, you’ll be comfortable trying anything in the cabinet.
Ask us. We’ll tell you what to do with it.
