SFgate.com recently published an interesting article on cooking meat with the bone. With the way meat is often packaged at stores these days it’s easy to forget there’s so many more options than just the standard boneless chicken breast or rib eye steak (rainy days always make me crave my Mom’s Ham Hock stew).

Interesting note….

Bones themselves don’t contribute much flavor, says Harold McGee of Palo Alto, author of “On Food and Cooking” (Scribner), a food-science bible for many chefs. But they do prevent juices from escaping from what would otherwise be a cut surface. Bones also act as an insulator, slowing the transfer of heat, which is why meat near the bone is always more rare and moist than meat near the surface.

While I’m lucky enough to actually have a few family members who are meat aficionados, we unfortunately don’t live that close (but that certainly doesn’t stop the Fedex deliveries from arriving now and then).

Here are a few Bay Area butcher shops and markets for bone-in cuts and special orders.

• Bryan’s Meats - San Francisco
• Lucky Pork - San Francisco
• Golden Gate Meats - San Francisco
• Cafe Rouge Meat Market - Berkeley
• Magnani Poultry - Berkeley
• Monterey Fish Market - Berkeley (all types of meat)
• Tokyo Fish Market - Berkeley (fish only)
• Berkeley Bowl - Berkeley
• 99 Ranch Market - various locations
• Niman Ranch - online
• Draeger’s - Menlo Park, Los Altos and San Mateo
• Whole Foods - various locations
• Andronico’s - various locations
• Mollie Stone’s - various locations

The Kung Foodie clan recommends: Tokyo Fish Market and Monterey Fish Market for Berkeley shoppers…they often have the best prices and are near a number of other small specialty markets that can’t be beat. We do all of our grocery shopping in small shops on or near San Pablo Avenue.

This entry was posted Saturday, February 4th, 2006 at 5:31 pm and is filed under Bay Area Best, Cooking Tips, Extra Bites .