Food Producer Review of Wyld Country Beef.
There nothing I love more than discovering some of Dorset’s hidden gems and this was definitely one of those times. I recently had the pleasure of meeting with Steve, the founder fo Wyld Country Beef, a farmer and a real foodie, based just outside of Weymouth.
Wyld Country Beef have a herd of rare Shetland cattle and have chosen to rear them using only very natural and traditional methods. Their farm land gives them the luxury of only feeding them grass and the herd is extensively grazed outside. This allows the meat to mature slowly and to be wonderfully marbled with fat, producing frankly outstanding quality meat.
I had the joy of taking home some short ribs and some shin meat as I had tasty dinners lined up with new recipes I was keen to try. On Steve’s advice, I slow roasted the short ribs simply and served with some roasted vegetables and I enjoyed these with my husband and a glass of red wine. This simple meal allowed the beef to shine… and boy did it shine!
Again, using Steve’s expert tip, I saved some of the cooking juices from the short rib and used these to slow cook the shin, adding a gently softened sofrito base, tomato puree, a little red wine, seasoning and a little thyme to make an incredible italian inspired ragu. I didn’t quite have the time to make my own pasta too, but wow – the extra effort to slowly cook the meat in all those beautiful flavours ended in a stunning meal.
Wyld Country Beef butcher all the meat themselves and hang the meat for 21 days, before preparing it for customer’s orders. Customers can collect the beef fresh or frozen and it can also be delivered if you don’t live locally to Weymouth.
In Steve’s own words… “This beautiful beef is a bit of a well kept secret and currently only a very few people across the country are privileged to enjoy such great tasting flavour of Shetland beef. We let our stock grow naturally so the next one won’t be ready to about Feb/March time but that being said, we always like to hold a bit in the freezers. So if you fancy a bit of a beef indulgence give the team at Wyld Country Beef a shout now and get on their customer list. We work on the ‘farm gate to dinner plate’ principal and on a first come first served basis, doing our best to match customer needs.”