What to do with mutton?

[Swing Swang]

I’ve got a few more three year old wethers going off this week so I’ll have some amazing mutton to play around with. Up until now i’ve only ever cured pork. Anyone got any great recommendations/pitfalls when making fresh sausage and cured meats from mutton. I do my own butchery so can use any cut I choose, and would be happy to try a whole muscle cure.

[NCPaul]

I've not worked with mutton so I can only point you to things to do with lamb that might work with mutton. I would start with merguez sausage to get a sense of how strong the taste of the mutton is. I have also seen Welsh lamb and leek sausages come up from time to time. A third lamb sausage would be gyro meat. All of these could be blended with beef or pork to modify the taste. I have made lamb bacon from a thin piece of belly and seasoned it with Provencal herbs which I liked. I have made Loukanika salami with some lamb added. On Cured Meats Blogspot, Jason cured a lamb prosciutto. As a general rule the meat should be milder tasting than the fat. I'm sure that there were a number of "lamb" recipes that were made with mutton. Shepherd's pie would be an easy choice to make. If you want to barbeque some mutton, there is a US tradition in western Kentucky around Owensboro for that (I have not tried it). Let us know how you get on with this.

[Swing Swang]

Thanks for that. Mergiez is a goer, I’ve got a few kg of trim from half a dozen sheep now, quite a bit of belly that I’ve taken a lot of the fat out of so that should make a good sausage. Gyros I might make out of a boned out shoulder laid flat on a bbq - it won’t be cooked on a vertical spit, but I reckon that the flavour should be pretty close.