Short Ribs in Britain

[Matthew Grant]

I saw Short ribs on the product list for Wild Harvest, they are listed as "Beef Jacobs Ladder (short ribs)"

Craig more interesting than the Kobe beef is the availability of Kurobuta Pork! I've been looking for this for ages! If it becomes more popular (it should as anybody who's tasted it will know) will the price come down? I can't help noticing that it is very expensive when compared to another quality product such as that from the Ginger Pig

[Adam Balic]

Right this is the ingredients for a stew I made a while back, on the left of the plate is a Scottish cut of meat known as "Boiling Beef" or sometimes "Boiling Flank". As you can see they are layered and have ribs in them, are these the same or similar to "Short Ribs"? If so that would be nice as they are about the cheapest cut of meat we can get. Good for stock, but I usually don't eat the meat it self.

[Craig Walsh]

Thanks for the questions.

We've raised pedigree Highland Cattle since 1992 -- as show animals and for folks who wanted attractive "lawn ornaments." We showed our cattle at various agricultural shows: Three Counties, Newbury, Bath & West, Royal Show, etc. But with the advent of cattle passports, and the foot and mouth epidemic, our "lawn ornament" customers started to opt for sheep.

We found we were raising beautiful cattle but were then sending them off for their burn value at 30 months. Highland cattle mature slowly: this makes their beef expensive to produce, and most commercial abattoirs don't like the horns.

It was depressing for us to raise cattle to be burned --- and unprofitable. I'm originally from Hawaii, and have been familiar with Kobe beef for years. In early 2003 there was a tremendous amount of publicity for the $40 Kobe hamburger in New York City, so we thought we'd try the East - West "fusion" of Highland cattle and the Kobe process.

We began the Kobe diet (grain and massage) in February 2003, and the first steer went to the abattoir in September 2003. His beef was so unusual that the old, wizened cutter with the "seen it all" look was positively gushing.

Over the course of the next couple of years we've gradually moved away from Highland cattle and over to pure-bred Aberdeen Angus cattle. While the Highland beef is good, the Kobe-style Aberdeen Angus is monumental.

(To digress a moment, I was surprised to discover that you can call beef "Aberdeen Angus" as long as the steer's sire was Aberdeen Angus. So much of the Aberdeen Angus meat sold today is actually Aberdeen Angus cross. We take pride in the fact that ours is 100% Aberdeen Angus.)

The majority of our customers are food enthusiasts who order directly from our website.

We have sold our beef to restaurants. In general, they find their customers love the Scottish | Kobe beef --- but the ingredient cost makes a profit difficult. Our Scottish | Kobe mince has been the exception: it makes a great Kobe hamburger. Our mince is made the old-fashioned way --- no "reclamation" of gristle and other untasty bits --- but is not outrageously expensive.

Because we don't use Wagyu cattle (in my opinion, too fatty for Western dishes --- please see the comparison photographs --- the gastronomic palaces of Japanese food prefer Wagyu imports from (primarily) Australia and the States.

At one time we offered American Wagyu as well. We found our customers preferred to wait for our beef --- a wait that can sometimes be several months. And our Scottish | Kobe beef is less expensive than the imported meat.

Most Wagyu cattle in Japan has been crossed, over the years, with Western breeds as shown in our table.

Kurobuta pork.

Kurobuta (Japanese = "black hog") pork is actually pork from a Berkshire pig. The widely-repeated story is that the British gave Berkshire pigs to the Japanese Emperor as an official gift in the mid 1800's. I've hired a researcher and he's looked in all the likely files at Kew and through the index of The Times and we've been unable to verify the legend.

We raise our pedigree Berkshire pigs in the Kobe style: they're fed a diet of grain and beer, and go swimming in an indoor, heated pool instead of being massaged. As best I can tell, the Japanese pig breeders raise their Berkshire pigs in a more conventional manner.

Yes, the price will surely decrease as more Kurobuta pork is produced. It's pretty amusing that I thought I'd need to import Kurobuta pigs from Japan, only to discover that they were really imported from Britain in the first place.

There are photos of our pigs (including swimming pigs) in our online photo gallery. And we have a new piggie website at www.kurobuta.org.

We love what we're doing, and are happy to show folks around the farm (please just give us a bit of notice, to be sure we're here). Come swimming with pigs.

[MobyP]

Yep. That's short ribs.

Similar to these

[Adam Balic]

Oh. They are really common up here, the supermarkets (Tesco and Sainsbury) even sells them. A £3-4 a kilo, people buy them for there dogs to chew on. Fancy that. Will have to cook them now I guess.

Edited January 10, 2006 by Adam Balic (log)

[Matthew Grant]

Yep. That's short ribs.

Similar to these

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Where did you get your short ribs Moby?

[Matthew Grant]

We love what we're doing, and are happy to show folks around the farm (please just give us a bit of notice, to be sure we're here).  Come swimming with pigs. 

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If I drive up for a swim will you feed me cake and beer as well?

[Craig Walsh]

Cake, beer, swimming, massages --- our pleasure. It's just the long green mile bit at the end that's a bit of a worry.

[Matthew Grant]

After Cake, beer, swimming and massages I'll die happy and am happy to butchered for short ribs.

Just checked the route - 162 miles from my house, unfortunately I think I'll have to go mail order.

[MobyP]

Where did you get your short ribs Moby?

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17 trips to my butcher, much begging, 3 special orders, 2 rejections, and finally they got it right - and then they charged me an arm and a leg, and they weren't all that good. Too lean. And this is the cut that most butchers use for mince, so I wasn't a content bunny.

By the way, Randalls butcher on Wandsworth bridge road know about short ribns. So long as you order them on a Friday, they can have them for you on a Monday. But don't tell anyone.

Edit to add: the best Short ribs I've found were without doubt from the place near Marco Polo's - ribs of devon beef from Dart's Farm - click for his description. They were exceptional, reasonable, froze well, and completely unavailable in London.

Edited January 10, 2006 by MobyP (log)

[Duncan]

Cake, beer, swimming, massages  --- our pleasure.  It's just the long green mile bit at the end that's a bit of a worry.

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You're doing Kobe style long pig as well?

[Fengyi]

I saw Short ribs on the product list for Wild Harvest, they are listed as "Beef Jacobs Ladder (short ribs)"

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Thank you for posting this term 'Jacob's Ladder'!!

I finally got up the nerve to ask the oldest butcher at our local place about this cut. He immediately recognized the name but said he hadn't cut it for a while. He gave me a quick talk about where it was located....and result! He is ordering me a 'whole ladder' and I am going in next week to get it cut up as I like.

Thank you again for giving me the 'magic words' to enable me to eat short ribs - yum! yum!

[erica graham]

Having just started back at work, finished typing the menu for tonight etc I logged on to catch up, and saw this thread- short ribs rang a bell- then I realised we have them on our menu tonight! "Braised Short Ribs with Glazed Root Vegetables and Curly Kale"!!