MEATS

Among the beef, veal, and pork offerings at Claus’ German Sausage & Meats, home cooks can find mountain oysters, kidneys, and marrow bones for roasting or adding gelatin to stocks. But the sausages and lunchmeats are the real draw here, particularly the handmade frankfurters, Jagdwurst (a beef-and-pork bologna), and Mettwurst (a pork pate perfect for sandwiches). Most sausage casings are natural sheep or pork intestines, and Claus’ is one of the few places where you can take your own meat or wild game to be smoked.

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Goose the Market’s small selection of steaks, brats, and bone-in chops is among the finest in town, and this is one of the few sources of the coveted pork, chicken, and duck from Gunthorp Farms in LaGrange, supplier to many Chicago four-stars. All cuts here are natural, without the solutions added to many commercial meats, making them succulent and juicy when cooked. Perhaps even more alluring are the European-style cured and smoked meat offerings, many of them—like guanciale, lardo, and applewood-smoked bacon—made in-house.

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The freezer at Joe’s Butcher Shop & Fish Marketbrims with Kobe and elk steaks, and old-school meat counters lining two sides of the place are stocked deep with pork from Iowa; Indiana Amish chicken; and superior beef, such as tenderloin graded “Reserve,” “Angus,” and “Atlas”—the same style as at the legendary Atlas Supermarket—all hormone- and antibiotic-free. Among his many prize cuts, owner Joe Lazzara recommends the dry-aged ribeyes and strips, a considerable bargain at $17.99 per pound.

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If they’re out of ground lamb, they’ll grind you some fresh at L.E. Kincaid & Sons. If you want your veal cutlets wafer-thin for your veal Parmigiana, they’ll get out a cleaver and get to pounding. There’s practically nothing the folks in this Meridian-Kessler institution won’t do to satisfy their customers. And owners Dave and Vicki Rollins are true experts: They advise county and state cattle boards, sponsor 4-H cooking classes and competitions, and own their own cattle herd near Huntington.

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Perhaps the most impressive of all the sections at theEuro-style, “spoke”-design Marsh in Noblesvilleis the spacious meat department, with its black-and-white tile, gleaming counter, helpful meat-cutters, and signs reminding you that only 2 percent of all meat is certified U.S.D.A. Prime. Much of that prime beef is Angus, with tenderloin ringing up at $14.99 per pound. Special cuts like a frenched crown roast of pork are generally available, as are leg of lamb and buffalo tenderloin ($19.99 per pound).

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Any grocery store will sell you a steak, but when you need an entire side of a goat, swing by Saraga International Grocery instead. Does your recipe call for a cow’s head (eyes still intact)? Or a slab of pork belly? You’ll find them right next to chicharron (deep-fried pork skin), spicy chorizo sausage, and wafer-thin slices of pork and beef ribeye for a traditional Japanese shabu shabu hot pot. There’s even a certified halal butcher for Muslim cuts of chicken, lamb, and goat at $4.99 a pound.

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The Fresh Market’s meat-section manager Joe Giesting’s 25-plus years of butchering experience make him the go-to guy for questions about special cuts and cooking suggestions. The store stocks wheat-fed Murphy Farms pork, all-natural chicken, and premium aged Hereford steaks (a tightly regulated heirloom breed meat-lovers know for its leaner, full-flavored cuts) from National Beef of Kansas.


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