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Nose-to-Tail
Posted Wednesday 15th April, 2026
Welcome to a new segment for our online shop which will feature plenty of information, facts, tips and tricks, all from James! Relating to everything Fordhall of course! That may cover the butchery, farm shop or life on the farm.
Our biggest USP, and also challenge in the butchery, is that we only use our own beef, lamb and pork; a statement we are very proud of, but probably don’t shout about it enough! We hang the carcass’ here in our dry aging fridge whole until we need to use them in the butchery for either our online orders or the farm shop. Balancing the demand for each cut is quite tricky! We could sell 5 to 6 cows worth of fillet and ribeye a week, but for us that isn’t sustainable as we wouldn’t sell that volume of the less popular cuts. You may have heard us mention our focus on nose-to-tail butchery, which means using as much of the animal as possible. It’s a traditional approach that reduces waste, respects the animal, and gives customers access to a wider range of flavourful and often better-value cuts.
So, here I am to give you some ideas or for substitutes you could make if you ever find yourself looking for something a little different!
Flank Steak- A lean, thin and fibrous cut which is made for flash frying, doesn’t need long to cook, is tender but most of all is flavoursome! I’ll eat these instead of a ribeye (which is my favourite) if we don’t have any available that week.
Shin beef- A slow cooking cut of beef which is an ideal swap for stewing steak or braising steak. When slowly cooked over a long period of time the cut will provide shredded flavoursome meat, which I love to use as a replacement for beef mince in lasagnas and chilli to give an extra texture and flavour level.
Lamb Breast- A fattier cut of lamb which in my eye gets bad press, if it was beef it would be called brisket so maybe we should rename it so?! If it can be slowly cooked, the fat keeps the meat wonderfully tender and moist. Perfect as a subsiture to use in shepherd’s pie, or your own homemade lamb and mint pie!
If you'd like to learn more about Nose-to-Tail and learn lots of cooking ideas, we have just introduced a fabulous book into our shop called "Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking" by Fergus Henderson. It's a really lovely book packed full of recipes from is London restaurant.
