Despite all the headlines about plant-based burgers, beef isn’t going anywhere just yet. In Hawaii, we eat an average 54.1 pounds of beef a year (a few steaks lower than the US Department of Agriculture’s estimated national average of 57.9 pounds).
But are you stuck in a meat rut? Do you use only a fraction of the cuts available, or do you wonder how to expand beyond sirloin steaks and chili?
We talked to two Oahu butchers who know their beef. They can name every little muscle and can excise “silverskin” — butcher slang for those sheets of gristly elastin — from a slab of meat with the assured elegance of a concert pianist. We asked them to share their meat manao and favorite go-to recipes.
BRYAN MAYER
Oahu has had a celebrity butcher in its midst since October, when Bryan Mayer joined Kunoa Cattle Co. as its director of product.
The New York musician (he played bass for Brooklyn-based Detachment Kit) found his second career when he applied for a job with a gourmet grocery.
Filling in at the meat counter, combined with reading Bill Buford’s seminal culinary journey “Heat,” cemented his passion to learn as much as he could about cutting up meat.
He made his way to ground zero for the art of butchery and ethically produced meat — Fleishers Craft Butchery in Kingston, N.Y., where he worked his way up from apprentice to head butcher, eventually taking charge of and formalizing the company’s training program.
He has helped cultivate a new generation of butchers and chefs focusing on sourcing, humane slaughter, and whole-carcass utilization, and has led workshops at food meccas like the James Beard House and Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture.
Kunoa reached out to him last August — and two months later he arrived to oversee meat production at Kunoa’s Kapolei facility.
>> Butchery philosophy: The farmer deserves all the credit, Mayer says. “I don’t get to do the thing that I love to do without their sacrifice and hard work. … I get to drag a knife for a few hours every day because of their round-the-clock efforts. They should get a national holiday, except they wouldn’t take it off. They’re too busy feeding us.”
>> Favorite cut: Ground beef. “Everybody loves ground beef, and not everyone can afford a rib-eye, and so I eat a lot of ground beef when I want meat. It’s super versatile, you can do so many different things with it.”
MAYER SUGGESTS using ground beef to make your own chorizo. “It’s a really flavorful sausage without putting a ton of ingredients in it. … We give enough spice to make it taste like what it is, a fresh Mexican chorizo … and a little bit of beer.” Add eggs and have it for breakfast, or use it to make tacos.
CHORIZO
By Bryan Mayer
2 pounds ground beef (30% fat preferred but 20% will do)
2-3/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
3/4 teaspoon cayenne
1-1/4 teaspoons ancho chili powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon EACH garlic powder, ground allspice, cloves and cinnamon
1/4 cup beer (such as Maui Brewing Co. Bikini Blond; a lager or pilsner is fine, but stay away from stouts and wheat beers)
In a medium mixing bowl, combine all ingredients, mixing thoroughly until you start to feel the sausage bind, about 1 minute (you’ll notice a definite change in texture as the meat becomes denser).
Heat a dry cast-iron skillet over medium to high; cook mixture until browned. Make sure to scoop out and save the fat that accumulates in the pan — use it to add flavor to other dishes. For example, use the fat to cook eggs to serve with the chorizo. Serves 4.
Approximate nutritional information, per serving: (based on 20% fat beef): 450 calories, 29 g fat, 11 g saturated fat, 145 mg cholesterol, 1,300 mg sodium, 2 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, no sugar, 40 g protein.
CHUCK WAKEMAN
Chuck Wakeman, owner of Butcher & Bird in Kakaako, grew up in California, where meat meant a value pack from the supermarket.
Like Bryan Mayer, he stumbled upon butchery, in his case when he moved to Chicago in 2000 and saw a newspaper advertisement seeking a butcher for the family-owned Apple Market. Despite having no experience, he convinced the manager to take him on as an apprentice.
“The shop was full of old-timers, 60 years and older, so when they saw somebody young come in to learn their craft they were really excited and downloaded so much information into me,” says Wakeman.
The market was the perfect place for him to learn to make sausage, a skill you can experience at his Kakaako shop (the kielbasa is a winner).
“I was there for almost 10 years. We did whole-animal butchery, ground our own meats, and I thought that’s how everybody did it.”
He had a rude awakening when he moved back to California and worked in a supermarket.
“I saw how they processed meat and I asked, ‘Where’s all the carcasses?’ ‘Oh we don’t do that.’ So I learned the difference between a butcher and a meat cutter.”
Wakeman moved to Hawaii in 2012, and finding no butcher shops he got work in kitchens, starting at the short-lived but influential Whole Ox as the butcher. He later picked up new cooking skills when he filled a vacancy on the hot line.
He also did stints at Vintage Cave Honolulu and The Pig & the Lady, his butcher talents getting him into kitchens where he could absorb more skills. Then he became manager at Whole Foods Kailua, an experience that spurred him to open his own place.
His vision: “What a butcher shop should be, doing it the way I feel it should be done.”
>> Butchery philosophy: Making connections with people is Wakeman’s priority. “It is about finding ways to use everything you have, adding value to it, giving it to a customer, along with that feeling — the trust, confidence and passion — that you had making it. I guarantee when they go home, they’re going to feel so good about it, even if they overcook the steak they’re still going to love it.”
>> Favorite cut: Hanger steak — a rare cut, one per animal, that usually weighs 1-1/2 to 2 pounds. “They used to call it the butcher’s cut because only butchers knew about it and would take it for themselves.” Around 2000, the steak began showing up in French bistros, where it is known as “onglet,” and prices went from almost nothing to as much as $15 a pound.
“It sits next to the organs, so it has a little bit of that organ iron-y taste,” says Wakeman. “It’s really, really juicy, similar in texture to skirt steak but thicker, and something you can sear up really hard and keep the inside nice and rare. Just a really tasty piece of meat.”
“This is a classic combination,” Wakeman says of his hanger steak. “The chewy meatiness of the steak is sparked by the slight bite of chimichurri.”
HANGER STEAK WITH CHIMICHURRI
By Chuck Wakeman
1 hanger steak, about 1 pound
2 tablespoons canola oil, divided
Smoked sea salt, to taste
6 sprigs fresh thyme
2 tablespoons butter
Cracked black pepper, to taste
>> Chimichurri:
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
1/4 cup Thai basil
2 teaspoons crushed red pepper
Sea salt, to taste
>> To make chimichurri: In a medium mixing bowl, combine olive oil and vinegar. Coarsely chop the herbs and fold into oil-and-vinegar mixture. Add red pepper flakes and salt.
Heat oven to 450 degrees. Remove the tough membrane running down the center of the steak: Slice as close as possible to both sides of the membrane and lift it out. You will have 2 strips of meat. Use butcher’s twine to tie them together, wrapping twine in spots about an inch apart, creating a single steak, like a filet.
Brush steak with half the oil and season with salt. Let steak come to room temperature, 30 minutes.
Heat cast-iron skillet on high. When pan is “ripping” hot, add remaining canola oil. As soon as oil begins to smoke, place steak in pan to sear for 6 minutes. Flip and place pan in oven for 4 minutes.
Return pan to medium-high heat on burner. Place thyme sprigs on top of steak and add butter to pan. As butter browns, baste steak with butter for 3 to 4 minutes.
Remove twine and let steak rest 5 minutes. Slice and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Top with chimichurri. Serves 4.
Approximate nutritional information, per serving (not including sea salt to taste and assuming 2 tablespoons of chimichurri sauce per serving): 520 calories, 46 g fat, 11 g saturated fat, 95 mg cholesterol, 150 mg sodium, 1 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, no sugar, 24 g protein.
FIND THE BEEF
>> Kunoa Cattle Co. beef is sold at ChefZone and Don Quijote and Times supermarkets; kunoacattle.com.
>> Butcher & Bird is at Salt at Our Kakaako, second floor, 762-8095,
