Prime Cuts by Jess Pryles: the butcher counter, explained

Jess Pryles’ second book lands on 29 September, and I’ve had an early copy on the bench for a few days. Short version: it’s a reference and a cookbook in the one volume, it’s built cut by cut, and it’s the book I’d hand to anyone who goes quiet at the butcher counter.

I’ve had Jess on the show a few times now. On stage at Meatstock Melbourne, on the podcast, and live together on The BBQ and Brews Show. So when she sent a copy out ahead of release, I was always going to read it properly rather than flick through it.

It’s organised the way you actually meet meat

The book goes cut by cut, and each one connects what’s sitting in the cabinet to what happens in your kitchen. That sounds obvious. It isn’t. Most books are organised by method, or by meal, and leave you to work out which lump of meat they meant.

So it opens with how to choose: butchery basics, what quality and grading actually mean, how to read a meat label, grass-fed versus grain-fed, and what Wagyu is. Most usefully, it covers what things are called, including the cuts that go by another name entirely. Half the problem at the butcher is not having the words.

Then prep: the tools, brining, marination, tenderness, and what the heck silver skin is and why it has to come off. Little things that make a massive difference to the way people cook. Then cooking it, storing it, a chapter of genuine meat science, and a troubleshooting section for when it goes sideways.

Like Hardcore Carnivore, it teaches

There’s a lot of learning and teaching in here. How to roast, how to slice, what temperature and why. The recipes aren’t sitting alongside the information as decoration. They’re there to put it to work.

The ones I’ve flagged

There are more than a hundred recipes, and over twenty of them are steaks alone. These are the four I’ve dog-eared.

Classic BBQ Pork Ribs, page 80, under St Louis cut ribs. My all-time favourite thing to cook, and the first one I’m getting my hands into. If you want my own take on the same cut, it’s here: how to cook St Louis cut pork ribs.

Smoked Sichuan Pepper Beef Ribs, in the plate ribs section. Looks superb, and it looks simple. Plate ribs are the big ones, and I’ve written up my own beef short ribs. This is the same family of cut treated completely differently.

Smoked and Seared Tomahawk Steaks, page 98. I’ve cooked plenty of these. It’s good to see them from the inside for once.

Char-grilled Picanha Steaks, page 142. The one I want to try. I’ve never really known what to do with picanha.

It goes well past the obvious cuts

There’s a shanks chapter, a whole section on rendering and using fat, and a rare steaks chapter covering teres major, hanger, Denver steaks, beef cheeks and tongue. If you only ever buy scotch fillet, there’s a lot in here you’ve never cooked.

The barbecued shank is the one that got my attention. It’s one of those epic cooks, the sort you want to attempt just to say you’ve done it, and the recipe for it isn’t something you can easily find online. This one nails it, all the way from prep through to serving.

Worth knowing who wrote it

Jess is Melbourne-born and Austin-based, and she co-founded the Australasian Barbecue Alliance, the same body behind the sanctioned contest that came to Geelong. She also holds a graduate degree in meat science. That last part shows: the science chapter reads like someone who studied it, not someone who read about it.

The verdict

It’s a genuinely good book for understanding meat. What to buy, why it costs what it costs, and what to do with it once it’s home. Enough depth for the serious meat nerds, but it never assumes you already know. I’ll be cooking plenty out of it, starting with page 80.

Prime Cuts by Jess Pryles is published by Murdoch Books and is out 29 September 2026.