Spring Lamb in pub loos

Last year Dan's Dad very generously gave us half a lamb. An unusual gift, I grant you, but a useful one nonetheless.


(Sorry if the photo's in poor taste, but y'know we have to acknowledge where meat comes from.)

The one cut I had been rather dreading was the Lamb belly. I had no idea what to do with it, and I feared inedibility due to the fattiness of it.

I put it off, and put it off, and then delayed some more. But it has now been sitting in our freezer for a year, so this weekend I decided it was time to stop being a scaredy-cat and tackle the belly.

I took the recipe from a pub toilet wall.

Yes you read that right.

We ate at the Kingham Plough a few months back (very good - I recommend it, but not too often or you'll be bankrupt). They had papered their loo walls with pages from old farmhouse recipe books. While washing my hands I noticed one for how to cook lamb belly and figured it was one to remember since I knew I'd have to tackle the lamb belly in the freezer sooner or later.

So, here's the loo method:

Lamb Belly (or breast of lamb, which somehow sounds more appetising) with Butterbeans
serves 3

approx 500g lamb belly - trim off as much fat as possible, then roll it up with some sprigs of rosemary and thyme and a crushed garlic clove in the middle. Tie with string or cotton. I did 3 separate rolls, but I imagine one large one would also work.

Place this into a pan of boiling water and simmer for 5 minutes, then fish out the meat and put it into a bowl of cold water. I left this in the fridge for a few hours until I was ready to cook dinner, but I would think you could move straight onto the next step.

Place 2 or 3 rashers of bacon in the bottom of a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Slice a lemon and lay the lemon slices on top. Put the lamb pieces on top of the lemon.
Cover with 2 or 3 more slices of bacon.

Finely chop an onion and scatter over the top. Sprinkle on some rosemary and thyme.
Season with salt and pepper (go easy on the salt though as the bacon is salty).

Slosh about a glass of white wine into the pan, add 300ml of stock (or a stock cube), then top up the pan with cold water until the water just covers all the meat.

Bring slowly to the boil, skim off any scum that rises to the top with a slotted spoon, then allow to simmer for about an hour and a half. Keep the water topped up during this time.

About 10 minutes from the end of the cooking time cook any other vegetables you fancy (we had purple sprouting broccoli). Drain a 400g can of butterbeans, add a ladle of the liquid from the lamb pan and gently heat through.
Serve.

The verdict:
I won't be buying lamb belly; its too greasy for me to really enjoy it. But if I get given some again I won't be horrified. It was tender and had a nice flavour, but I think roasting it might be more successful as it would give all that fat a bit more opportunity to run off into the pan rather than ending up in the finished meal. I liked the flavours though so I would roll it with herbs and place some lemon on top, and butterbeans made a nice change from potatoes.