Prue Leith had a little lamb
Ten years ago very little was known about the “head to tail” movement, but today scarcely a day goes by in most kitchens that it isn’t mentioned. Food trends change as regularly as fashion trends do but there is little doubt that this one is here to stay.
In years gone by animals have been the recipients of much mal treatment and abuse as we try to feed an ever growing world population. More recently however the attitudes of consumers and chefs alike have changed drastically due to the world’s dwindling food supplies, a greater awareness of general health, and a massive improvement in human conscience towards the treatment of animals that we eat. The changes are evident with even large supermarkets stocking free range and organic products.
At Prue Leith Chefs Academy we fully subscribe to the ideas of responsible cooking and better use of our food supplies and we recently demonstrated this to students and combined it with the valuable skill of butchery, a skill sadly neglected in many kitchens. We bought a Free Sate free range lamb carcass, butchered it in the demonstration kitchen, processed all the different cuts and added a lamb compilation dish to the restaurant menu.
We hung our lamb for a few days in the walk in fridge before it was ready for butchering.
Breaking the lamb down into the prime cuts is relatively easy and only takes a few minutes , starting at the head end or fore quarter we removed the fore legs which are only held on to the animal by muscle so there is no joint to be separated.
After both legs are removed, the neck comes of with a few swift cleaver blows, followed by the midriff containing the most valued and frequently used joints namely the loin and fillet.
Lastly the hind legs are removed and now all the prime cuts have been separated and are ready for further breaking down and deboning.
The real challenge that now faces any chef is using every last scrap of the animal and doing it in such a manner that he or she can charge top dollar for even what most would consider the most substandard of cuts. This can be achieved by inventive use of new and older cooking methods namely: sous-vide and braising, as well as pushing the boundaries of application for example using the tougher hind leg to make pasta fillings or using the caul fat to encase the loin and stuffing it with tapenade.
Any restaurant worth going to these days is run by a chef who understands the monetary and economical importance of using properly farmed animals and they are willing if not keen to develop skills in using every last delicious piece of the animal.
For over three weeks now we’ve had our little lamb on the menu, with parts of the compilation changing as we are using up different cuts – braised neck and leg, grilled racks, confit ribs to mention just a few. The offal was used in other dishes in the kitchen with the kidneys making their way into a Lancashire hotpot and the liver was given a Spanish sherry and onion twist in a Mediterranean lecture.
