Mutton dressed as mutton
Richard Guest was a late convert to an old staple ingredient - mutton. Here, he tells Gaby Huddart why he takes no lamb to the slaughter.
Among this year's crop of new Michelin-starred establishments is the Castle hotel in Taunton, Somerset, long recognised as a standard bearer for modern British cooking. Listing quintessential dishes on its restaurant menu, the Red Guide earmarks "steamed mutton pudding with capers" as a number-one contender.
However, the Castle's head chef, Richard Guest, began his love affair with mutton only after he took up his current position in the autumn of 1999. "Previously," he says, "I was really a Francophile chef, having worked at the Savoy and then with Jean-Christophe Novelli, both at the Four Seasons hotel and at Maison Novelli restaurant in London, for six years.
"When I came here I was suddenly clutching at straws to cook English food, because that's what this place is all about. It all started many years ago when Chris Oakes was head chef here, and Gary Rhodes and Phil Vickery both continued the tradition of using good local produce to create typical English dishes."
Despite the hotel's culinary remit, it was only when Guest read an article in the Daily Telegraph that he was inspired to start using mutton as part of a "go English" quest. "Tamsin Day-Lewis did a feature championing mutton, and I thought it sounded really interesting," he says. "It reminded me of an ingredient that I hadn't seen much of since I was a child."
Through farming relatives in the area, Guest managed to lay his hands on some mutton and since then he has not looked back, using the ingredient on his menu between early February and late April every year. He now sources it directly from Seaborough Farm near Yeovil, Somerset, which keeps ewes just for him - alongside the many lambs that it rears for more widespread use.
The animals are at their best for mutton between one-and-a-half and two years old, Guest explains. Younger than this and the meat has not developed its full, rich, almost gamey flavour, while over the age of two the fat becomes too pungent. "The flesh needs to be a deep red colour, while the fat should be nice and deep and white in colour," he says. "Over two years, and the fat tends to take on an unpleasant smell from the animal's wool grease, so obviously it isn't very nice to work with or to eat."
He adds that the wool grease is also the reason the meat can only be used between February and April. "During the summer months," he says, "the wool grease works its way into the fat, making it smell nasty."
When Guest is running low on mutton, he simply phones the farm, which sends a sheep to the abattoir for him. "The abattoir then does the initial butchery for me, splitting the sheep in half and hanging it for two weeks to let the meat relax," he says. It is then hung for a further week on arrival in the Castle's kitchen, to ensure that it is completely tender. "That's obviously in stark contrast to lamb," says Guest, "which doesn't require hanging and can be used straight away."
Each sheep, which costs about £70, will make about 70 portions of steamed pudding. This contrasts with lamb, which will make about 25-30 portions per animal, yet also costs £60-£70. "But that doesn't mean that mutton is a cheap ingredient," says Guest, "because, in terms of its preparation, it is far more labour-intensive than lamb. To use mutton requires skill and technique and, from my point of view, that's part of the fun of being a chef."
The first stage in preparation is to strip the carcass and chop up the meat, which takes just over an hour. All the different parts of the animal - shoulders, saddle and legs - are used in Guest's mutton puddings, although he stresses that the meat needs to be carefully trimmed to remove any sinews - "it's quite a sinewy animal" - as these would be unpleasant to eat.
"We don't waste much of the animal, because the bones are used for stock, and we even use the suet from around the kidney in making the pudding mixture," says Guest. "About the only thing we can't use is the offal, because it has far too strong a flavour."
Guest and his brigade then use the chopped meat to make the puddings, as shown in the recipe. For those who want to try the recipe, Guest emphasises that the cooking of the stew filling must not be rushed. "To get the best from mutton," he says, "it needs very slow cooking. That breaks down the meat and the fat and ensures it is moist and tender. I can't stress enough that mutton can't be rushed, and it mustn't be put in a hot oven or it will dry out."
As for the best combinations with the meat, Guest recommends sweet vegetables, such as carrots, onions, swede and celery, because these are a good balance with its extremely savoury flavour. "Capers are the classic accompaniment and add acidity and sharpness," he says, "cutting through the richness of the meat and meaning its strong flavour isn't so in-your-face."
Other ingredients to try with mutton are cinnamon and nutmeg, because their sweetness is, again, a good way of counterbalancing the savoury quality of the meat, while rosemary, thyme and parsley are all herbs that serve to lift the meat's flavour.
As to the popularity of the meat, Guest says that on his à la carte it outperforms lamb - he sells about 60-70 puddings a week during its season. Indeed, he says, since it appeared in the Red Guide, some customers have even phoned before booking a table to check whether it's still on the menu. "Older people in particular love to see mutton," he says, "because it takes them back to when they were growing up."
On the Beeton track
Since the Second World War, lamb has largely replaced mutton in the nation's affections, but during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries mutton was a commonly used ingredient.
Indeed, in 1861 Isabella Beeton - better known simply as Mrs Beeton, and one of the most widely read cookery writers of all time - wrote: "Mutton is, undoubtedly, the meat most generally used in families. And, both by connoisseurs and medical men, it stands first in favour, whether its fine flavour, digestible qualifications, or general wholesomeness be considered."
