Salt marsh lamb
Welsh mountain lamb is renowned for being small but tasty and this reflects their hardy environment. Saltmarsh lamb from the picturesque estuaries is a speciality, with a different taste much sought after by the French to whom most production is exported.
Rick Stein served agneau pré-salé (saltmarsh lamb to you and me) to Jacques Chirac at the Anglo-French summit in 2001 to celebrate the President’s birthday. The Frenchman’s gourmet status was questioned as he glugged German lager with the meal. Or was this a culinary snub?
You don’t have to go to France or to Downing Street to appreciate it: you can buy from your local butcher or by mail order, albeit only when it’s in season, which is from June until October. Of course, it wouldn’t be so special if you could get it any time of the year.
I bought our family a leg of saltmarsh lamb. Great anticipation. It had cost a bit more than normal but only ten per cent or so. I took it out of its wrapping and studied the joint. Leaner than I expected, a darker colour and very few traces of fat.
On the principle of not seasoning food before you taste it, I forewent the usual custom of squeezing slices of garlic into the flesh. This was to be au naturel, apart from the rosemary sprigs.
An hour at 200ºC with a couple of turns. Fifteen minutes standing under tin foil then carving. Slices slipped off the sharp knife. Served with roast potatoes, freshly picked broad beans, peas and chilled mint sauce. Magnifique!
Had I been blindfold would I have been able to taste the difference? I like to think so. It was more tender than I am used to. The flavour lingered for longer. I can’t describe how but the taste was different, maybe all the pleasant bits were amplified.
What makes it taste so good? These ‘sea meadows’ are abundant in saltmarsh grasses, samphire, sea lavender and thrift. It sounds such an attractive mixed salad, and on the basis that ‘sheep is what sheep eats’ it’s no wonder it tastes so good.
It wasn’t salty. The grasses, such as Spartina, are tolerant to the salt conditions because they have glands with which to excrete the excess salt.