Eat meat, by all means, but less of it and of better quality, Tom Parker Bowles writes in his latest cookbook, Let's Eat Meat, out now from Pavilion Books (£25). The food writer and critic says he is in love with this particular protein, "in its every guise, from rib of beef to dishes seasoned with a scrap of the stuff."
His favourite meat is roast chicken. “My mother used to cook it, smothered in butter, with a lemon shoved where the sun don’t shine. Hot oven for an hour, rest and serve with mashed potato and peas. Simple, and if you get a decent chicken, sublime.”
Make friends with your butcher and trust him, he says, while dismissing some food trends. “Don’t be misled or dazzled by rare breeds, organic this, or biodynamic that. Just taste it. The vast majority of meat that has a decent flavour will have been brought up by a farmer who cares about proper farming practice.”
Quality is paramount, quantity less important. There are chapters in the 120-recipe book devoted to cooking with “less meat”, and using “meat as seasoning”. So you’ll find showstoppers such as roast rib of beef – he likes his very rare, but still a little warm in the middle – along with fried aubergine seasoned with a small amount of spiced pork.
Despite the book’s title, there is also a chapter called “No Meat”, that he justifies thus: “I love vegetarian food almost as much as I love meat . . . almost”. So if one of your children announced they were becoming vegetarian, what would your response be, I ask? “I couldn’t care less. And I would help them find thrilling veggie dishes, of which there are millions.”
He still loves his meat though, and if pressed to choose only one cut to work with, would opt for “some form of stewing beef, shin or chuck. Tough if cooked quickly but when given the slow and low treatment, it becomes so soft that it can be cut with a spoon”.
Fergus and Margot Henderson are the chefs he most admires when it comes to cooking meat. “ He’s the brilliant man behind St John, she has the wonderful Arnold and Henderson. Fergus’s bone marrow with parsley salad is a classic. And I’d eat anything cooked by Margot.”
Is there any meat he doesn’t like to eat, or a meat dish that he wouldn’t like to repeat? “I once had a raw tripe salad in Laos. Like meaty chewing gum. Not pleasant. Although a raw blood soup I ha d a few months back in a Chiang Mai roadside shack was rather magnificent.”
The last word? "Buy the best you can afford. There are lots of recipes for cheap cuts in the book, which means you can buy from the finest farmers and butchers, without breaking the bank." Let's Eat Meat by Tom Parker Bowles is published by Pavilion (£25). Photographs by Jenny Zarins
