Tracy and I have some wonderful friends at church that have a really nice farm but the coolest part is that they raise sheep. And we bought one. To go in the freezer. Locally raised, farm fresh, hormone free and then processed by a local butcher.
We paid just over $230 for 35+/- lbs of lamb chops, ground lamb, shanks and a few roasts. So far I have cooked up some of the chops and made lamburgers. For the lamb chops I have been seasoning them with some of the Penzey’s Lamb Seasoning. Usually when we do hamburgers we like to spice them up with the Northwoods Seasoning.
Tracy and I love lamb but most Americans do not. This is an interesting article from the New York Times that gives some insight to our aversion to eating sheep compared to the rest of the industrialized world. My understanding from a few people who have lived in Rutherford County for many years is that there used to be lots of sheep and goat farms around here. I also think that some people confuse the ‘gamy’ taste (in the pejorative sense) of lamb, goat and/or deer with a ‘this is natural’ taste of meat or maybe they are just too acclimated to a very mild flavor of beef. When I went to London and Dublin in April 2007 several of the meals I had there were lamb. One of the very best lamb dishes I have ever had was in a small Iraqi family restaurant in London that served a lamb shank on a bed of rice topped with pumpkin seeds and golden raisins. The presentation of that dish was just beautiful. While on that trip I snapped this picture of the Avebury sheep. They help keep the grass cut around all the monuments.
Another very good meal I had in Dublin was a lamb Boxty at this place.
So now we have a lot of lamb in the freezer and lots of recipes to try. Shepard's Pie? Rack of Lamb? I have never tried a Lancashire hotpot. Let's see what Tracy has to say about that....
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