Breast of Lamb

Breast of lamb and I haven't had a good relationship in the past. I once bought a breast of lamb from the Ginger Pig in Borough Market when we were living in London on a single wage and fairly broke. Even when we were impecunious I bought our meat at the Ginger Pig or direct from a couple of trusted producers at farmers markets, because supermarket meat in the UK in those days was such a disappointing waste of money. Breast of lamb, pork liver and several other cuts of meat had been suggested to me as cheap and tasty, and as the man next in the queue at the butcher's said to me 'Blimey, you are really skirting around the fringes of the beast, aren't you!?' Sadly, the instructions for cooking the breast I had also received resulted in no meat to speak of and gallons of unappetising fat and sinew (not the Ginger Pig's fault, I hasten to add, but my lack of experience with this challenging cut). On the plus side, the ideas for extending liver paté I continue to use to this day.

Nevertheless, when the wonderful Skint Foodie, who also shops at the Ginger Pig, posted about cooking breast of lamb and it coincided with locally produced lamb breast appearing in SuperU, I was encouraged enough to give it another go.

The only recipe most people know for breast of lamb is à la Ste Menehould, where the meat is slow cooked, boned, then cut into batons that are crumbed, grilled and served with a piquant sauce. This has always seemed like a messy business to me, so I was quite interested to try the Skint Foodie's approach to getting something edible out of a lamb breast.

I'm happy to report that his rolled pot roast style worked very well, producing a delicious rich gravy and perfectly acceptable slices of mostly meat. Sadly I didn't get to do ribs, as the lamb I purchased came with the ribs already removed, tant pis.

The pieces of lamb I bought came from Poitou-Charentes, our neighbouring region, and is a particular type known as agneau des bocages. The meat was IGP certified. That is, the sheep must be extensively raised in a particular geographic area (the region of Poitou-Charentes), lambs must be raised on their mothers milk for a minimum of 60 days, and be between 70 and 300 days old at slaughter. There are about 1000 certified producers and their lamb makes up a quarter to a third of the IGP certified lamb sold nationally, and 7% of the total tonnage of lamb in France. The agneau des bocages is a sort of sub-set of the Poitou-Charentes lamb, with only about 5000 beasts in production at the moment, but a market is being developed specifically aimed at supermarket sales. (Bocage is a type of traditionally managed pasture, now existing only in rare pockets.)

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Today is Earth Day, part of an American environmental movement lauched in 1970. This year's focus is on climate change and themed 'The Face of Climate Change'. The movement is about more than just this one day though, and is involved in projects worldwide to educate about the environment and support sustainable life practices. This year the Center for Biological Diversity is offering Endangered Species Condoms as their contribution to raising awareness. This is a continuation of a series they began several years ago. I'm assuming they have become very collectable. More examples, from a few years ago, can be seen here.