Yesterday we collected the lamb back from the butcher (minus their personalities, as they say). It always seems to coincide with a hot day, so I spent an hour or so hastily packing the meat up. We pack it ourselves, partly to save money and partly because there are three of us, they never seem to pack the chops into sensible portions.
Finally can breathe a sigh of relief.. the whole lambing thing is stressful, although also a lot of joy too, but you are not out of the woods until the meat comes home.. so much could go wrong on the way.
One of the things we struggle to deal with is the breast of lamb. I have, in the past, gone to a lot of trouble boning it out, and stuffing and roasting it, and it was still horrible. We have roasted it along with the Sunday roast and used the meat in further dishes. With the mutton, we boned it, cut the worst of the fat off and with additional shoulder meat made sausages and burgers, but on lamb its smaller and more fiddly.
I was thinking, looking at it, that it’s odd we don’t see lamb ribs about as much as pork. So, I cut the ribs off of one breast, (stashed the remainder to be stewed with the neck), marinaded it with lemon, garlic and rosemary in anticipation of barbecue later.
The phone rang, the call for barbecue went out, and we made coleslaw and vegetable kebabs (all meals should include courgettes at the mo…) and dashed over. As I was putting the ribs on the barbecue, I was wondering if there was a good reason why people don’t eat them much…
But they are great. So I’m going to bone the rest out for the next time. Definitely a good way to use them, and nice to have a taste of our own lamb the day it comes home. It was delicious.
And all the better for being able to share it with friends. I always think our pork tastes better when we’ve got company.