I have a small...make that a sizable mutton problem. Really, any mutton is arguably a problem but my husband presented me with a leg of mutton and sort of has his heart set on my preparing it for Easter.
I've had over a month to consider it, as the leg sat in the freezer but somehow, it slipped my mind. No, that's not true. I pushed it farther and farther back in the freezer in hopes he'd forget the damn thing and I could quietly dispose of it at a later date.
I haven't a clue what to do with it and my mother is no longer alive to ask. Actually, I know what she'd have done with it and nothing ruins a fancy meal like ringing the fire brigade to come put out the grease fire threatening to overtake the kitchen. Perhaps that was the lamb...I can't remember it was too long ago. Either way, sheepy/lamby/woolly creatures that go "baa" in anything other than ground meat form place me a bit on edge with one eye to the fire extinguisher. I don't even like mutton, in fact, I hate it. I hate the smell, the sticky fat, the smell, the taste, the smell, the clean-up, the smell and well, you get the idea.
So I went searching my cookbooks for advice but there wasn't any, at least not anything reasonable (I'm sooo not cooking the damn thing with hay. Yes, that's right, hay. I'll just run outside and grab some from the moulding bales next to the barn). Perhaps I could wrap it in cabbage and oatmeal (WTF?). So I turned to the internet which offered me much the same advice probably gleaned(sorry, still thinking hay) from the same sources. My sense is that there's only so much you can do with old sheep (almost sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, eh?).
On the odd chance any readers might have a brilliant thought, please feel free to share it in the comments. My plan is to go ahead and roast it with garlic and rosemary (that ought to help with the sheep-y odour) unless something else is discovered. I really am open to suggestions at this point as I'm hardly inspired to cook something I so intensely dislike.
Go on, don't be shy-share your sheep-y goodness advice.
So what did you decide?!
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I've ever had mutton. My (half English) father talks about it once in a while, but has never requested it.
I adore lamb chops, not leg of lamb so much because I just don't like leftover lamb. But my mother used to roast a leg of lamb every so often, presumably because it was a cheaper option for the whole family than chops.
I did find this --
http://www.graigfarm.co.uk/welsh_mountain_mutton_recipes.html
Probably not much help now that it's already Sunday...
That's something I will consider for the future. Turns out, my husband cooked his own Easter mutton as I'm still feeling ill. I can't vouch for the results as i won't be eating much of anything.
ReplyDelete