Where to find veal bones

[jbentley4]

Inspired by James Peterson's feature on classic French sauces in the latest edition of Saveur, I'm feeling motivated to spend a couple of weekends making stocks and demi glace. So I'm just wondering if anybody can point me to any local butchers or other outlets where I can get my hands on some good-stock-making veal bones at a reasonable price? Paulina Meat Market? Gepperth's?

[rjka]

Marketplace on Oakton in Skokie was selling them for $0.89 per pound this weekend

[Greg in Chicago]

In the past, I've bought veal bones at Paulina Market. I believe they charged almost $3/lb a few years ago, though. Not a bargain.

[jbentley4]

Yeah, that's the thing about these upper-scale, high quality butchers - nothing is a bargain. You want to make some demi-glace or some stock, and the next thing you know, you're $30-$40 in the hole.

[Evil Ronnie]

jbentley4,

Agreed, demi glace is an expensive undertaking. My advice is to purchase a high quality commercial product.

As a professional chef, I've made my own demi every week for the past thirty years and this stuff is as good as it gets.

No, I'm not affiliated with Culinarte.

http://www.bonewerksculinarte.com/

Evil Ronnie

[jbentley4]

Thanks for the reference. I'm definitely going to look into that, but I'm also keen to give it a go myself.

[RST]

Hi Chef, how are you?

Hi JBentley4,
Farm Fresh Meats on Devon carries top-notch meat, specially lamb, goat and veal. This last is routinely available in the display case in large quantities (i.e. not just as special order) and I am sure that the guys can hook you up with as many pounds of veal bones as you want (veal bones-not the marrow bones mentioned elsewhere on this thread-veal bones for all the wonderful collagen in it which is what you want for demi-glace). This butcher shop/grocery has been in business since the 80s and caters to a large multi-ethnic clientele. The meat is zabiha/halal of course and is of very high quality although it might take a while to explain the specific cut you want for a (European) dish (e.g. a cut of veal for scaloppini/saltimbocca) or a specific trim (say a rack of lamb, frenched). But the Mexican butchers have always happily worked with me on my specific requests. The shop is on Devon, east of Western, on the south side of the street, at about 2100 w (?) or so (blanking out on the cross-street). It's farther east than Tahoora Sweets but not as far east as Hyderabad.

Cheers,
Richard

[nsxtasy]

Hi Richard,

Are you sure Farm Fresh Meats is the name of the market? I tried looking it up in the yellow pages and don't see it there. Could it be the one listed as Chicago Halal Meat Market at 2243 W Devon Ave? That would be right between the other two businesses you mentioned.

[gleam]

Farm City Meats.

-----
Farm City Meat
2255 W Devon Ave, Chicago, IL 60659

[RST]

Yes, Farm City Meats at 2255W is the one. Sorry about the bad memory (and the bad info).

Chicago Halal Meat at 2243W also exists, but the one I was referring to on the post above is Farm City Meats at 2255W.

(I must have been thinking of Farm Fresh Market down the street on Devon, which has an excellent produce section-a vast range of beautifully-presented and beautifully-kept fruits and vegetables, everything from Mexican epazote/verdolaga/etc to dandelion greens/dill/etc to Indian produce like karela (bitter melon-the "spiny" Indian type), arvi root (Colocasia), methi (fenugreek) leaves, fresh betel leaves, turmeric both the golden kind and the white kind etc etc etc

Also a new bakery opened on the same block as Argo Georgian, where you can get samoon and pita fresh out of the oven. They have been open 3 weeks or so and are still not very busy and were very happy to oblige when I asked about a special order of pita smaller than the usual size they make.

Richard

[jbentley4]

Excellent. Thanks for the tip. I'm always up for a trip to Devon.

[nsxtasy]

>> Yeah, that's the thing about these upper-scale, high quality butchers - nothing is a bargain.

We occasionally buy marrow bones at Zier's for our dogs to gnaw on. They're inexpensive enough for us to keep buying them for that purpose...

[nsxtasy]

I would try the usual best butchers in the area, including the two you mentioned. If you need more suggestions, these topics have discussions of butchers in the Chicago area:

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/561594
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/380774
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/477536