Cured and Smoked Herdwick Mutton

There has always been a rich tradition of curing and smoking sheep meat wherever flocks of sheep were kept. The same applies to flocks of goats.  Cured meats are the old fashioned version of a fridge - keeping protein wholesome and long lasting.

Mature Herdwick wether, are castrated male sheep which were kept to an older age. They have a deeper flavour, a dark, tight, grained texture to the meat and were sometimes used to cure. 

They give a bigger leg than a ewe (a mature lambing female) and one of the things about curing is that older animals have a more appropriate ph for curing. The older legs cure more successfully and have a much more complex flavour profile (which is one of the reasons why the best Prosciutto’s are made from older animals).

It’s normally assumed that this product was produced in times gone by in the “continental way” of producing air-dried fancy salami, but this is a wrong assumption.

Cumbrian cured mutton isn’t produced this way and one of the reasons for there not being an established tradition in the UK of Italian style salami curing is the good old British weather and there is nowhere better to understand this than in Cumbria - it never rains in Cumbria (honestly, if you ask the millions of visitors we get to the lakes you will get probably get different comments about the weather). ;-)

The high humidity does mean that there isn’t the possibility of making any air-dried product that would be safe to eat. However, in this day and age there is an ever growing group of artisan salami producers and wholesalers who do quite nicely with a little technological help.

The cured mutton is to be cooked as you would do your ham and eggs for breakfast or for dinner at night. To add additional shelf life to the cured leg (and I guess extra flavour), it is (was) smoked, not in a purpose-built smoke house but in a smoke box built in to the back of the chimney. These disused stone smoke boxes can be found in many old farmhouses all over the lake district.

These Herdwick hams are not the mild flavoured gammon ham we have become accustomed to today, and as with all the things that aren’t mild or insipid it is an acquired taste. In my opinion though, it’s an amazing one. In the past, there also wouldn’t have been the consistency of product expected by the modern consumer, but maybe, just maybe that is part of the hams’ charm.

Mutton

Read my most recent POST on Borough Market's blog

Seventeen century mutton and oyster sausages

Our culinary history is a fascinating subject and in food terms, a gold (or graphene) mine.

A few years ago, my friend, the world renowned food historian Ivan Day, and I decided that we would make an old surf and turf recipe - Mutton and Oyster sausages. 

The recipe, if that's how ewe would describe it, was in an accounts book of the kitchen in a Cumbrian Big house which was only able to tell us the kitchen purchases (the ingredients) and had no measurements or methodology. Ivan was able to extrapolate from the existing knowledge of future versions of this recipe so that we could make them. 

We used the best quality Herdwick mutton, the freshest Colchester oysters and some spices that I had never heard of like long peppers. 

It was the most amazing sausage I have ever tasted, and I have tasted a few sausages during my thirty seven years in butchery. The problem as ever with things like this, is that they were made to be consumed on the day and have no shelf life .....it’s a shame, as I am sure given a chance, that they'd be venerated in our high end Michelin star eateries across the world.

The Wild Lake District

It is assumed by tourists who come to the picturesque Lake District that it is a natural untamed environment  - not a bit of it! 

Within the UK, our environment has been shaped by centuries of food and forestry production and the Lake District is no exception to that - the hill sides were deforested to accommodate the iconic and stout Herdwick sheep. Some of the best lamb and mutton in the world (and as an expert I say that without fear of contradiction) is produced from the Herdwick sheep. In Elizabeth I’s time Herdwick mutton was known as the Queen’s mutton and was the best ewe could get!

Zwarble vs Herdwick

This week I saw for the first time Zwarble sheep in detail and up close. Strangely fond of black fleeced sheep. They are good looking and as my grandfather said "like a decent table leg on each corner, not coming out the same hole", good overall confirmation (good fleshy carcass) and very solid.

I have to say though, they are nowhere near the much vaunted, and the much venerated Herdwick sheep of the Lake District who in the last few months and after several years have achieved the PDO (Product Designated Origin) status - Slow Food at its European best.

If you were to buy both a Zwarble meat and Herdwick meat, the Herdwick would win hands down.

Perfect examples of high quality Herdwick meat

The pictures below are of Herdwick lamb (first pic) and Herdwick mutton (second pic).

You can see from the fat on the mutton that its got a nice creamy colour, and that the very deep colour of the muscle is almost 'beefy' both in the mutton and even in the very young lamb. 

There is a purpleness to it that isn't normally present in spring lamb (this lamb came very early in the season too, even for a Herdwick). The best bit is when you eat it, it'll have a robust flavour which also isn't normally present in spring lamb!