Tying Meat with a Butcher’s Knot

Appears in
The Cook's Companion: A step-by-step guide to cooking skills including original recipes

By Josceline Dimbleby

Published 1991

  • About
Meat is tied not only for a neater appearance, but also because it enables more even cooking and easier carving. Boned joints, with or without a stuffing, obviously need tying, but it also helps to tie joints with one large muscle, such as silverside, so they retain their shape.
Professionals use this knot because of the control it gives over tightness. If you’ve boned a joint, or have an unrolled one for stuffing this knot at regular intervals gives a neat shape for even cooking.
  1. Pass a piece of string under the joint, with the short end towards you. Make the shape of a pair of scissors with your right hand and pass the short end of string over the palm and hold it firm with your third and little finger.

  2. Take the long end of string with your left hand and pass it over and behind the first two fingers of your right hand, parallel to the first piece of string. Pull with the left hand to keep the required tension.

  3. Keeping your right hand in the scissor shape twist from the wrist in an anticlockwise direction towards you and out so that the back of the hand is uppermost. Keep the left hand holding on to the long end.

  4. Thread the long end of string through the loop made by the ‘open scissors’. Remove these fingers from the loop carefully and draw the knot slightly closer, pulling the left hand end up tightly to close the loop and pull the string closer around the joint.

  5. Wrap the end of the string in the right hand around your palm, then yank the knot tight pulling the right hand towards you and down. This locks the knot. Finish with a right over left, left over right knot and cut off excess string with a pair of scissors or a sharp knife.