Home Butchery

Like many skills I think butchery is one you can only really learn through doing. 

Last week I butchered four more lambs and as I get into double figures now (total) I'm getting a little faster and more confidant in what I'm doing.

How Many Meals Are In A Whole Lamb?

I got asked on Facebook how many meals are in a lamb?

A tricky question to answer as everyone eats a different amount and it also depends on how you butcher it. I just butchered a whole lamb this afternoon while my little boy slept. I'm only an amateur so please be kind as to my cuts! 

Here are the joints and cuts I got from it:

Two legs of lamb. I've kept these whole but sometimes I will split them to make a leg and a chump joint. I'd say this would easily feed 8 people with probably some leftovers. 

Slow Cooked Mutton

Earlier in the year we had a ewe killed. 

The price for cull ewes was rubbish at the time and in all my years of keeping sheep I'd never tried mutton and I quite fancied giving it a try. Mutton is a popular meat all round the world, just in the UK we seem to think that sheep should only be eaten as lamb. 

The ewe was three years old, fairly big and as you'd expect, had a good layer of fat on her. Mutton has a well placed reputation for being fatty, all this means is you need to be careful in how you cook it. 

Talking to friend we decided to make a rub for the meat and cook it long, slow and low. Making the rub in the recipe above (my mate had to come over as I didn't have many of the ingredients!), we then covered the meat, scored the fat and set it in a low oven (160) uncovered for a little while then covered with some water in the tray until the fat started to come out. 

After an hour or so I lifted it up onto a rack on the tray to continue cooking (still covered), this bit is essential because I wanted the fat to cook out of the meat. 

The joint was in the oven for a little under five hours and was cooked to perfection (if I do say myself). I did brown it off a bit at the end by cooking with no cover. 

as you can see the half inch layer of fat in the bottom of the pan shows that this is the right way to cook it! 

The meat just fell off the bone.

I served it chopped up on some rice with steamed french beans (french beans with everything at the moment!), it was beautiful. So tender and so full of flavour. 

Who else likes to eat mutton? 

How do you cook the big joints?

Started Lambing

And so it begins! 

I was almost starting to doubt myself as lambing was taking so long to arrive! 

Yesterday I had two doubles, both sets of lambs were healthy and strong and had full bellies when I found them, so I was happy. 

The kids were pleased to see them as well! 

Second pair found on my walk round the sheep at 12 last night.

If it continues like this I'll be a happy man! 

Butchering A Lamb

Last week I butchered a lamb.

The animal was the right size but it was a bit lean, hardly any fat on it all all, just under a year old and only fed on grass.

I've done a bit of amateur butchery in the past and I have tackled animals bigger than this. I was surprised by how straight forward it was to butcher a lamb, I found the whole process really interesting. 

I did it using a YouTube video, Dawn recommended Scott Rea and I wasn't disappointed, it was really clear and straight froward, took me a few hours but I know the next one would be half the time. 

Fillet and leg

Breaking  the carcass down. After this point everything seemed easy.

All joints are weighed out and bags are labelled for the freezer, 

Breast jointed boned out and rolled. Need to learn the proper knots though! 

After jointing the animal up there was a bag of trimmings. I wasn't sure what to do with it, we've still got plenty of beef mince in the freezer and Cottage and Shepard's pie aren't that different in taste. Then my wife mentioned lamb burgers! 

I got the mincer out and fed it all through (the mincer has turned out to be a good investment).

Then I chopped up loads of rosemary and garlic mixed with salt and pepper and added it to my mince mix. 

I made the burgers with a burger making press, each is separated by some grease proof paper, it's good because when they go in the freezer you can then break off as many as you like. 

I can't wait to try these when we have a BBQ in the summer! 

So some more meat added to the freezer, we've already eaten half a shoulder I boned out, that did us for a roast and a really good lamb stir fry. I've also had devilled kidneys on toast and liver in onion gravy.

Who else has butchered a whole animal?

Did you enjoy the process? I found that I learnt so much about the animal and where the cuts were from.