Last time I visit the butcher

An unexpected text on the counter, and a recipe for chard in anchovy cream with olives.

Hello! My name is Rebecca May Johnson, I am a writer and cook and this is my Substack. This week’s newsletter is about a visit to a butcher, and a recipe for chard in anchovy cream with olives.

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Last time I visit the butcher

I stopped off at the butcher on the way home from dropping the baby off at nursery. I almost carried on going round the roundabout because of my general feeling of trepidation about this butcher (mentioned in my book Small Fires re sausages) but it was my partner’s birthday, and I didn’t have time to travel further to a butcher I like. I made my exit.

I walked in and there was one other woman in there as a customer and just one butcher working behind the counter – a mid-Wednesday afternoon lull. He was speaking about steak, telling her that the cheaper cut, rump, “nine times out of ten it’s no good”, guiding her towards sirloin or ribeye, more expensive per kilo. She was buying quite a lot of things and was unfamiliar with the butcher. “Do you do a monthly shop?” Yes, she said. She was buying meat to make quite a few meals. “Where do you live?” He asked. Only nearby, in B___, she said. “Well, we do delivery he said, so you can place a regular order, and we will bring it to you.” She seemed uncertain, he pushed on. She looked at me. If you’re only getting a few things go before me, I will probably ask lots of questions. I said I was just getting one thing and thanked her.

I am buying steak, I said. “Oh, you will have heard my whole spiel then”, said the butcher, who must be about the same age as me and has hair that is short, shaved at the sides and much longer on top, sort of slicked across. Yes, I said, and I want some rump. Could you cut a slice from the rump, about an inch thick? My mother always has this cut and then cooks it to be shared, I continued, by way of explanation. I felt I needed to bring in my mother as a decoy so that I was not disagreeing with him directly about what cut of meat to buy. Do you have a whole piece you can cut from? I asked doubtfully. I had been looking nervously at the scant amount of meat on display and couldn’t see any larger pieces or carcasses around. I had been faintly disgusted when he took some out of a vac pack freezer bag for the woman ahead of me. So their meat is frozen, I thought, or is it bought pre-butchered rather than breaking down a carcass in house? But he grinned and brought out a whole rump from under the counter and began to cut a slice with a large knife. He began saying “of course rump can be good, but just quite often when I’ve had it, it’s been tough” You’ve been burnt, I said. “More than once”, he said, emphatically, “but it’s lovely for a beef stroganoff, or a curry.”

I waited for my payment to go through, which made me realise just how much I had bought, perhaps it would stretch to a stroganoff another day as well as this birthday meal. As I turned to leave I saw several newspapers folded up on the counter. I recognised it as one that had been put through my door a month or so ago. Initially, given its name – The Light – we assumed it was a religious newspaper spreading the word. But when we looked closer, we realised it was something else: a far-right conspiracy-theory newspaper with a libertarian edge. It referred to itself as ‘a free truthpaper’. We looked it up. It was launched during the pandemic by an anti-vaxxer and expanded from there. On the inside page was an advert saying if you paid £25 they would deliver the magazine to 50 people on a street of your choice. Someone in my neighbourhood imposed this newspaper on us! It was well laid-out and edited professionally and contained a wild mix – antisemitic, transphobic, antivaxxer, deep state conspiracies and articles about the use of chemicals in perfume, the use of chemicals in farming, pieces on the lack of support for children with special educational needs, a re-telling of the history of physics that says Einstein’s importance was overstated, nuggets of ‘wisdom’ from Ayn Rand, much more.

I hadn’t seen the paper since we recycled it a couple of months ago and had mostly forgotten about it, but here were copies being offered to customers at the butcher’s shop. Later that afternoon I told my partner on the phone. I saw it when I had already paid, I said, making an excuse. I have been in to that butcher perhaps four or five times in the past six years and on each occasion, I have left feeling uneasy. I think the first time I went one of them said something to me like, “we don’t like outsiders around here” – sort of as a joke, but not a joke. And now I never need to go there again.

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Anyway, I fried the steak, rested it well, and it was fine. It was a whole slice cut from a rump around 1-1.5 inches thick. That could feed 4-5 people so I cut it in two as there were only two of us, and we had some leftover. I am making beef stroganoff with the rest, with rice.

I am no steak genius but this is what I did: I let it sit with some rosemary and garlic and some salt sprinkled on for around 45 minutes before cooking. Then I rubbed in a little oil, brushed off the aromatics and put it in a very hot pan for 3-4 minutes until caramelised, then turned it and did another couple of minutes until it caramelised, added a knob of butter, basted it and then removed it from the pan and rested it for ten minutes. I sliced it up and put it on the table so we could share it. We also had Maris Pipe potatoes cut into rough chips and cooked in the oven and I made chard with olives in an anchovy cream sauce – providing general sauciness for the dish – and it was excellent.

After we had this fantastic chocolate marmalade cake to a recipe by Katie Smith that I baked in the afternoon.

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Chard with olives in cream anchovy sauce

This is an excellent accompaniment to steak! Make it while the meat rests.

Ingredients

200g rainbow chard, washed and stems chopped into roughly 1-2 inch lengths and leaves torn (no need to dry the leaves the water will help cooking)
3 garlic cloves, finely sliced
6 anchovies roughly chopped
pinch of chilli flakes or 2 small dried chillies (optional)
2 tablespoons pitted kalamata olives
80ml double cream
40g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil

How to make

I made this when the steak was resting.

Add the butter and olive oil to a deep-ish frying pan that can accommodate everything and turn heat onto low-medium. When the butter is melted add the garlic and chopped anchovies. Stir to disintegrate the anchovies. When the garlic is pale gold add the chilli, and the chard stems and leaves and a few tablespoons of cold water. Put a lid on so they steam in the pan, and stir every one and again to make sure it doesn’t catch. Add a little extra water if it dries out too much – you don’t want it to fry. When the chard stems are tender, remove the lid and turn off the heat. Then add the double cream, stirring in well. Then add the whole pitted olives and stir in. Taste for salt and adjust. Add some fresh black pepper.