Lamb

Sheep meat, and the meat whose flavour varies most with what the animal grazed — salt marsh, mountain herb and hard scrub all show up on the plate.

Where it comes from

Sheep were among the first livestock domesticated in the Fertile Crescent, valued for wool and milk as much as meat. They graze land too poor and steep for cattle, which is why lamb is central from the Atlas mountains to the Caucasus to the Welsh hills and the high Andes.

Lamb is under a year old; hogget is a year or two; mutton is older, stronger and much cheaper, and it is the mutton traditions — slow curries, harira, haggis — that carry most of the flavour in world cooking.

Varieties

• Leg — Lean, roasted pink, or slow-cooked for hours until it falls apart. Both work; the middle does not.
• Shoulder — Fattier and more forgiving than leg. The cut for a long braise, and for most tagines and curries.
• Shank — One muscle, heavy in collagen, made for a two-hour braise.
• Rack and cutlets — The prime fast cut, best served pink.
• Breast and belly — Cheap, fatty, excellent slow-roasted or rolled and stuffed.
• Goat — A different animal but cooked in the same places and ways. Leaner, needs longer and wetter cooking.

In the kitchen

Lamb fat sets hard and tastes waxy when cold, which is why lamb dishes are served hot and why a lamb stew is worth skimming properly after chilling.

The strong flavour people either want or avoid lives largely in the fat. Trimming changes the dish more than any seasoning will.

Lamb is tagged on 305 dishes from 97 countries in the atlas. These notes are written from general knowledge and carry no per-fact citation — see About.