Cheap cuts of meat - Educate me!

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Can anyone recommend some cheap cuts of meat (and how to cook)? I made a stew with some beef skirt at the weekend, I do a roast belly of pork and if I can get gammon hock then i'll make a pea and ham soup, but is there anything else i can try? I know shockingly little about the different cuts of meat!

I did think it ws musing until I relised I couldn't log onto my emil or onling bnking.

Then I remembered bout onscreen keybord, but it is such fff tht I only use it where bsolutely nescessry

Ok here it is:

full recipe with whole shoulder takes 4 hours in oven, but we halve the recipe using a half shoulder, 2.5 hours cooking time, served with mash and we get enough for 3-4 to be honest.

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Slow-cooked lamb with butter beans.
serves 6:

1 shoulder of lamb, bone in (about 2.2kg)
Salt and pepper
1 head of garlic, cloves separatd and peeled
Olive oil
2 big carrots, finely chopped
1 leek, finely chopped
2 medium onions, finely chopped
3 sprigs of rosemary
3 sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
1 small bunch parsley, plus a handful for sprinkling
400g tin chopped plum tomatoes
300ml red wine
30Oml chicken stock
3 x 400ml tins butter beans, rinsed and drained
zest of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 160c/325f/Gas mark 3

Rub lamb shoulder all over with salt and pepper. Using point of a knife, make about 12 incisions in the skin side.
In each one, stuff a quarter of a clove of garlic (use 3 in total).
In a large roasting tin, heat a good splash of olive oil on the hob, add the lamb and brown well on al sides - this will take up to 15 mins.
Make sure is a decent colour, as won't get much opportunity to brown in the oven. Remove from tin and keep to one side
Throw the chopped veg and remaining garlic in to the roasting tin with the herbs and cook over a medium heat for about 5 mins, stirring occasionally, until they start to soften; add a splash moreoil if needed.
Pour in the tomatoes, wine and stock and bring to a bubble. Place the lamb on top, skin side down.
Cover roasting tin securely with a large sheet of foil (seal properly around edges) and place in the oven for two hours.
When the 2 hours are up, stir in the beans and turn over lamb, so it's skin side up. Replace the foil and return to oven for 2 more hours. By now, the meat should be tender and easily pulled from the bone.

Season the veg and beans and stir well. Then add a handful of chopped parsley, plus the grated zest of lemon (we just do a squeeze of lemon here).

Serve!
(hope someone makes this after all that typing!)
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must say, never bothered with the parsley.
You can also use cannelini beans or any other white beans on cupboard.

I usually go for easy, short recipes, but this labour of love is so worth it, the flavour is amazing and the meat so tender. You can put away a few glasses of vino whilst tending it too

As I said, my 2 year old loves it too, on Sunday all we heard was "more lamb???!"

Bumping because this is such a great thread and also because I'm hoping for more recipes.

I have some feather steak braising in my slow cooker as we speak

£2 for loads fo it

Falcon - do you have a slow cooker? I have a very easy recipe for bbq ribs if you do...

I buy Bacon Hock's , boil them for a good couple of hours with a bayleaf, celery and carrot. I save the stock for soup, just any veg you like chopped and simmer in the stock till cooked with a handful of lentils, and lastly some small bits of shredded bacon (off the joint).

The Hock I then drizzle with honey and pop in the oven till the skins crispy, not too long as the meats already cooked.

I have a great Butcher which we the majority of our meat from, but we also have a butcher at the local market on Wednesdays, he sells Hand Pork joints, boned or unboned for £3.00.
I've just weighed mine to cook it and it's just under 1.5 kgs. I slow roast mine in the oven , in a tin with carrots, celery, onion and a bayleaf , for stock I use a good couple of glasses of cider.Cover with tinfoil and slow bake for a couple of hours.It's very yummy.

As for my favourite Lamb, we always buy shoulder, thats something that has been passed down from my Grandmother, she always made the most amazing Roast Lamb from Lamb Shoulder. Its just another of those cook slow and gently cuts.

if you want a treat - this isn't exactly a CHEAP cheap cut, if you see what I mean - then onglet is lovely as an alternative to scarily priced different bits of steak. Truly gorgeous, I don't think we'll ever buy any other steak-like-thing again (on the biannual occasions when we do have steak at all...)

Oi CD, where do you buy your feather steak?

waitrose

what is feather steak? I should really use my slow cooker more (undomestic goddess emoticon)...

Shoulder of pork is much nicer than leg (sweeter meat, more moist) and is much cheaper than leg or loin.
Beef skirt can be used as frying steak but is best if it has been marinated first.

Aren't these cuts of meat quite fatty though?

I also want to know what a feather steak is!

It is the same as onglet
It comes from the thinner end of the shoulder blade

there wasn't a scrap of fat on it

lotster - if you are still out there, do you think that lovely recipe of yours would work with breast of lamb?? Can't quite picture what a shoulder of lamb looks like so don't know if they are similar! thanks

shoulder of lamb looks like a squashed leg of lamb - fat and flat at one end. My mum always used to bone and roll the 'blade end'.
Has broiler chicken been mentioned?

Hi Fairylights, sorry I only just saw your question!

Must confess I've not cooked with breast before, but think it's where the ribs are removed and then usually used to stuff and roll, or you can get small chops from?
Not sure how it would work, but can really recommend shoulder or half shoulder as a cheap cut that gets so much benefit from slow cooking...

This is handy

Cuts of Lamb