I’m going to have to try that. I love the stuff. I’d never tried it but a woman I was dating used to cook with it. When I found out what she was using, I was really surprised because I thought it would resemble peppermint/spearmint/etc. It can singlehandedly catapult salads into another dimension, IMO.
The game originated on links courses, where pockets of sand and sometimes surrounded by small mounds are a naturally-occurring feature. No sheep needed!
I suspect that any grass hardy enough to survive on the Scottish coast isn’t going to be demolished so easily, anyway, but it wouldn’t be enough to feed cattle. Sheep farming in Britain generally takes place on the land unsuitable for anything more profitable, including these coastal areas.
Do make sure you keep your mint in a pot. It grows and spreads quickly, and it’s got a very…aggressive root system. If you do put it in the ground, gardening books recommend a hard plastic or metal barrier set at least 8-10 inches into the ground all the way around your plant. Unless you want it to completely take over everything.
There are lots of different types of mint, so be sure and read the labels when you buy your plant. If you’re not sure of what you’re getting, pull off a small leaf and have a nibble. We usually have a pot of Kentucky Colonel and one of a chocolate mint, and usually an apple or pineapple mint, depending on what’s available and what sort of mood we’re in. And I have a little patch of catnip that I mostly got to fill in a patch where nothing else will live.
Interesting. I’m not an expert on golf by any means, but I’ve always wondered if that story were true. I also wondered how they maintained the courses back in the old days. Then I saw part of a match at St. Andrews—that course bears little resemblance to the modern ones.
Thanks for the heads up. I couldn’t tell you what she used but dayum, it was tasty!
I like lamb, but most Americans don’t (my daughter and stepson won’t touch it). Also, where I live (NE) it is expensive and hard to find. So I have found, it is easier (and cheaper) to go out to a Greek restaurant. For me, barbequed lamb is wonderful-and lamb shanks cooked greek style are delicious. I also understand that sheep farming is being threatened (in the American West) by the resurgence of cayotes and wolves, which are predators on sheep.
Absolutely, although there’s still plenty of courses here on similar land. This, which happens to be from NW Ireland, shows the type of dunes which build up to create the land in question.
I don’t care for lamb, for two reasons:
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I don’t like lamb’s particular funk. I like flavorful meat just fine, but lamb is just terrible to me. And because it’s strong and unpleasant, it’s hard to slip into dishes so that I can acquire a taste for it. Its smell and flavor overpower everything. Beef, chicken, pork, and turkey don’t have this problem; they play nicely with other flavors.
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All the recipes I’ve seen for lamb have been similar, which leads me to conclude there’s a limited number of palatable preparations for it. And these recipes tend to consist of ingredients I normally don’t keep in stock or would use for anything else (I’m looking at you, mint jelly). None of the less-exotic meats have this problem-- you can toss them with practically anything and they’re good. So even if I wanted to eat it, it’d be somewhat of a hassle. I tend to regard lamb as being limited and inconvenient as well as bad-tasting.
I probably buy lamb at least as often as I buy beef. Boneless legs come from Costco, and are about the same price ($4/lb. or so) as beef brisket or chuck roast. Shanks come from the Arab markets, and run $2/lb. or a bit more. I tend to cook beef in more European-style ways (with tomatoes, red wine, and root veggies), but lamb more often in Middle Eastern style, either some kind of Moroccan-style tagine with cumin and onions and dried apricots, or Persian-style with pomegranate juice or molasses. Yum!
I love grocery shopping at ethnic markets. I hardly buy anything in “regular” supermarkets anymore.
Thanks, I’ll do that next time.
Re: The price of lamb. I was at Pike Place Market today, and leg of lamb was $5.99/lb. Seemed reasonable to me. Too bad I didn’t drive into the city today (Park & Ride/Bus today), otherwise I’d have half a leg in the freezer now.
The best lamb I’ve made at home was a night I forgot to buy thyme and lemon for chops and all I had was a bottle of Buffalo Wild Wings Carribean Jerk Sauce. Kosher Salt/Pepper and that sauce was some of the best chops I’ve made at home. I don’t find lamb hard at all to prepare- simpler seems to be better, for the most part- but I do find that the cooking method is crucial. Over cooked lamb is unforgiving and I find that if it isn’t a slow cooked shank, it’s better off on the grill.
The trick with lamb is that you need assertive flavours to go with it… hence the spicy/sweet contrast in Middle Eastern and African dishes, or the really rich tomato/wine/olive combo in Mediterranean style dishes.
Some do require fairly exotic stuff like pomegranate molasses or mint jelly or whatnot, but not always. I mean, maybe it’s just that my pantry is better stocked than most, but I usually have everything I need on hand to make my favourite lamb recipes (including pomegranate molasses, but that’s because I’m madly in love with Middle Eastern food and use it all the time).
For example, I just made a pot of Berbere-Braised Lamb Shanks for a dinner party last weekend. Easy, delicious, and the only thing I had to buy was lamb shanks (which were $2.99/lb at the Greek butcher). I think most cooks would probably have the majority of the ingredients on hand, except may ground cardamom, which is a bit unusual (we keep it around because I bake with it constantly).
In the summer, I like to make simple Grilled Lamb Chops, which I marinated for a couple of hours in a mixture of balsamic vinegar, honey, olive oil, minced garlic, chopped mint and ground cumin before grilling. It helps to have a giant mint patch, true, but you can omit it and the chops are still delicious.
In fact, I’m gonna have to try the jerk sauce prep Smokinjbc described… that sounds good! (yes, I keep jerk sauce on hand too)
I don’t think anybody’s mentioned it yet (at least not on this page), but fresh rosemary pairs very well with lamb. In all my years of eating lamb, I think I still yet have to try it with mint sauce.
Speaking of assertive flavors, when we were in Owensboro a month ago checking out all the mutton barbecues (Moonlite, Old Hickory, George’s, Ole South), we noticed that the barbecue sauces at all these establishments were very heavy on the Worcestershire, to cut through the mutton’s stronger flavors. So, think a thin sauce, a la an Eastern North Carolina vinegar-based finishing sauce, but replace half that vinegar with Worcestershire and lots of black pepper, a splash of lemon juice, and you get the idea. Here’s one recipe. I wouldn’t use a lot of it, as Worcestershire is a really strong flavor, but it’s another idea for you lamb/mutton lovers out there.
Mint sauce is a rarity for me with lamb too, as it reminds me too much of Gran’s cooking.
Rosemary is wonderful. I will sometimes stud a leg of lamb with slivers of garlic, roast it with Rosemary, and then make a red wine reduction gravy to go with it. Food of the Gods.
I briefly considered rack of lamb (or lack of ram, is we like to call it) for Christmas dinner. It was $20 a pound. A decent roast was more than $100. 
And I’m in the middle of a big agricultural area where all kinds of things, including lamb, are produced locally.
Yeah, but rack of lamb is comparable to say, prime rib or filet mignon in that it’s a gourmet cut and is one of the most expensive cuts of lamb you can buy. Most people wouldn’t blink at $20/lb for filet mignon or $100 for a prime rib roast.
Oh, and rosemary with lamb is divine. I can’t believe I forgot to mention that! A liberal coating of thyme is also a good choice, particularly when roasting, as are herbes de provence.
we had a rack of lamb for 8 for Christmas; it was about $80 from the butchers. It was terrific; I made a rub of thyme, garlic, rosemary and lemon juice and it turned out great.
I can’t often afford that except for special occasions, but I look for sales on lamb; boneless legs or chops especially. I love roasting a boneless leg on the grill with rosemary, garlic and lemon.
I have one marinating now with that plus the recommended cumin, plus a dash of garam masala. My family loves lamb, and I have 2 teenagers to satisfy.
I was raised on a very basic shepherd’s pie variant that veritably swam with Worcestershire. Loved the stuff and hadn’t had it in years, so at my request my father made it for me recently. He used ~1/4 ( not precisely measured ) of a cup to a one and a half pounds of ground lamb and I thought it was great. But then we like our Worcestershire and nostalgia might have colored my enjoyment ;). According to him a lot of web recipes called for “one teaspoon”, which he considers completely and utterly wussy.
Maybe our family were odd for Americans, but my father has been cooking with lamb since I was old enough to remember ( those New Zealand legs of lamb used to be cheap in Ca ) and I still do as well from time to time, usually a boneless roast. Also I particularly love lamb-based Indian curries.
I’ve never in my life done the mint jelly thing. Mutton only once, again from my father and as I recall nobody was overly impressed with it prepared as a simple roast.
I was yakkin’ with my sister yesterday. She reminded me that when I was an infant I had to eat lamb after a bout of meningitis. I needed the protein. She complained that she had to eat mac’n’cheese. Only she had previously said she doesn’t like lamb, so what’s it to her? 
Anyway, I had a couple of merguez (lamb) sausages about an hour ago.
Your dad is the Serb, right? Well, as a point of reference, my Serbian friend who does a pig roast every year (as in her dad goes out and buys a live pig, they have a father/daughter moment killing and butchering it, and then invite over about 50 people to roast it over a specially built spit in a specially built brick oven he put in their backyard, and then eat it accompanied by much dancing in 13/8 time and appropriate amounts of rakija) says that on those rare occasions that they don’t roast a pig for holiday dinners, they do a lamb. Upon assimilation, the food is always the last to go. 
That and the Serb discussion above reminds me that cutting ground lamb (about 50%) into chuck for hamburger makes for a flavorful twist on a standard hamburger.