Just a quick one here on what’s probably my favourite meat: Lamb (Okay, maybe bacon aside, but IMHO that porky goodness occupies its own space in the carnivore’s universe!)
For my wife Sue’s birthday, I gave her a butchery course at the Ginger Pig here in London. Some of you may be thinking, ‘Gee, that’s not a very romantic gift.’ Maybe not, but trust me, she liked it. And I did, too, as I got to go along on the 2nd voucher I bought. Woo!
The Ginger Pig is well-known for selling excellent quality meat from its seven London retail locations. The course was being run out of their Moxon Street location in Marylebone, an area filled with ridiculously chichi shops displaying 5 items of clothes, priceless antiques, or Rolls Royces. There’s even a shop dedicated solely to buttons! Fortunately, the butcher shop was down to earth, and not snooty in the slightest.
Upon our arrival, we were greeted by a lamb carcass laid out on an enormous butcher block. Fortunately, it appeared we would not need to first hunt down and slaughter the evening’s subject. That was a relief.
Our tutor for the evening, a proper old school London butcher named Perry, gave us the lowdown on what we were to expect. We were to learn all the different cuts that make up the lamb, then try our hand at some butchery techniques, followed by a big old meal of, yeah, you guessed it, lamb. Sounded good to me!
And good it was. Perry proceeded to carve up the carcass into its multitude of cuts, encouraging the students to try a cut here and there. We learned a little about knife technique, using the sharpest knives I have ever encountered. Good thing we were provided with a sparkly safety glove. A little reminiscent of Michael Jackson, though I couldn’t imagine him ever doing this. Of course, there was the ubiquitous meat saw as well, not at all dissimilar to the metal-cutting hacksaws I’ve got in my tool box at home. Sue even got to have a go with it, practising her ovine surgery skills.
Eventually the entire lamb was broken down into all of its cuts. In addition to the familiar leg, shoulder, chops and rack, we learned about some of the often overlooked cheaper cuts which are delicious when slow cooked, such as the scrag end (neck) and breast. The latter is apparently best cooked up similarly to a pork belly. I’ll definitely be giving this a try sometime soon!
Then the class had the amusing task of trying to put the whole carcass back together, a real 3D meat jigsaw puzzle, and not as easy as you might think!
For the final educational portion of the class, each student was given a massive lamb shoulder, and the directive to bone it, ideally without making a complete mess. Again, more of a challenge than you might expect, particularly as the shoulder blade is completely hidden within the flesh, creating quite a meticulous procedure to remove it without cutting the whole shoulder in half. But in the end we managed it.
To be honest, I found that easier than the final step, which was to roll and tie it up. I realised years ago, when taking a sailing class, that knots are not my strong point, and this was strongly reinforced as I struggled mightily to bind it up. But Sue gave me a hand after she finished hers, and we were gifted our massive lamb shoulders to take home with us. 3 kgs without the bones, and a usual price tag of £50 each!
For the grand finale it was time to eat! Huge trays of slow-cooked lamb shoulder and shanks were brought out to us, along with lovely buttery mash and, most appreciated, numerous bottles of red wine, which flowed down oh so nicely.
Stuffed and tipsy, we packed up our carnivore swag, which also included several kilos of lamb bones destined for our stock pot, and dragged ourselves home. Good thing we love lamb as we wound up eating it for the rest of the week!
Jack McCall 