Butcher Box July 2016 Subscription Box Review + Coupon

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Butcher Box July 2016 box

Butcher Box is a subscription box service that delivers premium quality meat for $129 per month. Each box comes with a selection of meat (about 15-20 meals worth) that has been carefully cut and prepared. The Butcher Box brings back that unique experience you get when you visit your local butcher shop.  Their specialty is 100% grass-fed beef, but they also provided mixed subscription options that include heritage pork and organic chicken, too! You can also have the box delivered every two or three months depending on your needs.

Butcher Box July 2016 unboxing

The meat is vacuum sealed in plastic, packed in small cardboard boxes, and then kept frozen within the outer styrofoam cooler with a large dry ice pack.  I liked that they packed the dry ice bag with the warning label facing upward — I’ve had a bad experience in the past that resulted from another vendor’s failure to do so.

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A short welcome note.

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The back of the card gives you instructions on how to refrigerate the meat, as well as instructions on what to do prior to cooking them.

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The founder’s letter.

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There’s also a recipe included for one of the cuts – the Top Sirloin.

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The back of the recipe card gives you more information about the cut and instructions for thawing and prepping the meat.

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All the meat kits included in this month’s Butcher Box!

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We used a coupon and received a pack of Pederson’s Uncured, No-Sugar Added, Hickory Smoked Bacon as a free bonus item!

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Even the bonus item was in line with the Founder’s healthful meats philosophy, raised vegetarian and without antibiotics.

Butcher Box July 2016 (7)This bacon was excellent — not too salty, nice smoky flavor, and a good fat/meat ratio.
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Bone-In Pork Rib Chop:  These big slabs were each from different points on the pig.  Four came in the pack, but each is big enough to split between two people.

I made a simple sauce for the pork using habanero, red and green onion, bell pepper, and Eaton’s West Indian Mango Jam (from an Irie Mon box).  Sweet potato oven fries made a fine side.

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The final dish with fresh mango and fries.  I pan-fried the pork — it was very juicy, firm but tender, and very flavorful.
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Ground Beef Brick:  Two one-pound packs of ground beef.

For the ground beef, I did burgers on the grill, serving them with a new potato salad made with hardboiled egg and Pommery Moutarde de Meaux (one of our all-time favorite condiments).

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Served on a potato roll, the burger was so good I almost felt bad smothering it with smoked gouda and Pederson’s bacon — almost.  Butcher Box July 2016 (10)

The beef was delicious as a burger.  Even at 80/20, it didn’t flare up on the grill.  The texture was very nice, too.  There was no pebbly or mushy texture, and the burger seemed to hold the juice within the meat instead of dripping.
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Beef Sirloin Kabob:  One pound of large stew beef style chunks of meat.

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This cut is suited for braising in a stew or chili, or grilling on a skewer.

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Some pieces were the size of a small steak!  Shown are the ingredients for my own version of Ethiopian Tibs — tomato paste, habanero and the usual aromatics, plus some Berbere, Mitmita, and smoked chilis from Raw Spice Bar.  On the right is my bowl of teff flour injera batter.

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I cut the meat into 1/2″ chunk and stewed it in the sauce until the latter was very thick.  The meat was very tender and had a great umami that shone even through the spice.  This shows the meat, prepared as tibs, served on and with injera (and a dollop of sour cream, as I tend to have a heavy hand with the spices).

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Organic Chicken Wings:  Frozen, these looked like packs of large wing pieces — once thawed, I discovered each had about 18 buffalo wing sized wings.  One might be slightly taken aback at getting wings in a steak box, but the astronomical retail and restaurant prices of wings means these organic wings are a welcome treat at our house, even if they displace some beef.

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I cooked the wings in the oven after tossing in a orange sriracha glaze, recoating midway through baking.  Because my wing sauce was a bit more exotic than Buffalo-style, I used waterchestnut-like  jicama and kiwi-ish dragonfruit instead of celery and carrots.  The firm and juicy texture of each made them a good substitute.  The wings were really great — most were the two-bone wing segments, but there were several drumlets too.  Very tender, good skin coverage, and decent amount of meat for small wings.

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Beef Top Sirloin:  This is the featured cut — two well-shaped sirloin steaks of grass-fed beef.

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The meat wasn’t heavily marbled, as is the norm for grass-fed beef, which tends to be very lean.

I rubbed the steak with Kent Rathburn Elements Steak & Chop Garlic Salt from July’s CrateChef and created a pan sauce using Balsamic Fig Mostarda.

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Here the steak is plated with broccoli, salt encrusted new potatoes, and a Balsamic Fig Mostarda, Blau Franker (bluish-colored Austrian wine), and shallot pan sauce.  The steak was lovely — tender, juicy, and flavorful.  The cut was very nice, too, as it was a great thickness for pan-frying, allowing the center to come to medium rare by the time the exterior developed a nice Maillard.

This mixed box was a lot of fun to work with.  Every piece of meat in the box, whether beef, pork, or chicken, was flavorful, tender, and delicious.  Everything arrives portioned in manageable bags (one pound for most items, 12 oz pairs of steak) in a deep freeze, so storing in the freezer for later use is super easy.  I loved the beef — it had the nice flavor I expect from grass-fed, but it was also much more tender and buttery than is common for such lean beef. After a gamey experience with grass-fed beef a few years ago we’ve shied away, but this beef was delicious!

This box is of course expensive. Each box comes with 7 – 10 lbs of meat, which is enough for around 20 individual meals (at a 5 – 8oz portion size), which works out to about $6.50 per portion for the meat – and there is no difference in cost between getting all grass-fed beef or mixing your box to include organic chicken and heritage pork. You may see those as “filler” items or as valuable variety.

You can save $10 on your first box plus get free bacon – just use this link to sign up.

Visit Butcher Box to subscribe or find out more!

The Subscription: Butcher Box
The Description: Remove the stress of worrying where your meat comes from! ButcherBox all premium natural, 100% grass fed beef kits will be delivered monthly and feature a great variety of ur top notch beef. Each month they curate a unique and appealing kit using an array of different cuts and provide tailored recipes to help you discover and explore new cooking ideas. Every kit has carefully prepared cuts, bringing back that unique experience of visiting the local butcher shop. There’s 15 – 20 meals worth of meat based on 6 – 8oz portions.
The Price: $129.00 per month

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