Shetland lamb – a true winter delicacy

Like goats, sheep will thrive in harsh conditions and are especially suited to areas where there is little arable land suitable for producing crops or plentiful winter fodder. Native Shetland sheep are a particularly hardy breed. They spend the majority of the year outdoors, roaming free across vast common grazing areas. They can even be wintered outdoors and pure Shetlands will often lamb out on the hill too.

Rearing Shetland sheep requires very little human intervention; a crofter’s watchful eye, a good sheepdog, and excellent stockmanship guarantee the quality and sustainability that Shetland is known for.

One of Britain’s smallest breeds, they are compact but perfectly formed, with a thick fleece of world-famous Shetland wool to keep them cosy through the winter months. Listed as a heritage breed in the Slow Food Movement’s Ark of Taste project, they are a truly robust, self-sufficient, little animal. Though most crofters will supplement their feeding or take them to ‘in-by’ arable ground to keep them in good condition through the winter, they are largely heather-fed, grazing on the great expanses of heather-clad hill ground they are hefted to.

Shetland lambing time can vary from croft to croft, depending on when the sheep were tupped, but generally it starts in March and runs through to around May. If you’re still thinking about your tasty Easter roast, you’ll quickly have realised that lambing happens exactly around Easter. While the pretty images of fluffy, filskit lambs gambolling about the fields are indeed a common Easter sight, our desire for lamb on the table on Easter Sunday is a modern distortion of nature for the UK market.

Much of the lamb on British tables at that time of year is, in fact, imported. Although some UK breeders are trying to satisfy demand by rearing sheep indoors and bringing lambing forwards into the winter months. If you want a more natural product, reared as mother nature intended, with a guarantee of excellent animal welfare and a super-green stamp of approval for sustainability, you should be looking to eat Shetland lamb much later in the year, when the animal is six to nine months old.

Wonderfully tender and sweet, Native Shetland lamb enjoys PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) status. To be awarded this quality mark the animal must have been born, reared and slaughtered in Shetland, and must be under one year old. The local abattoir holds Quality Meat Scotland and Scottish Organic Producers Association accreditations, and is managed by the Shetland Livestock Marketing Group, which is a community co-operative.

You should be able to source Shetland lamb through any good craft-butcher’s but don’t expect to find it in your supermarket chill cabinets. When sold through mass distribution channels Shetland lambs are traded on weight alongside poorer specimens of larger modern breeds and crossbreeds. Recognition of its unique quality and provenance is often entirely lost.

Fortunately, as we become more sensible about the environmental impacts of our consumer choices and more people begin to realise that finding truly sustainable agricultural models is much more complex than demonising red meat, many more craft butchers up and down the country are beginning to see increasing demand for high quality, sustainably sourced meat with a provenance that speaks for itself.

Here in Shetland, we are lucky enough to have several excellent local butchers such as the Scalloway Meat Company, Anderson’s and the Sound Butcher’s as well as a range of producers who sell direct, farm to fork. All the butchers sell Shetland lamb at this time of year and will be more than happy to help you decide what to buy and how best to prepare it.

If you’re not lucky enough to be here at the right time to sample Shetland lamb, you can still sample a delicious Shetland roast at other times of the year. You should ask your butcher to dress a cut of Shetland hogget or mutton for you. Hogget is the term for an animal old enough to have cut its second teeth and, to my mind, it has a much better depth of flavour than lamb. A slightly older animal, it will have had longer to graze on heather or forage for kelp along the shoreline, both of which give Shetland reared sheep a distinctive flavour, as well as outstanding texture and marbling.

If your teeth are watering and you’re looking for a real winter warmer give this recipe for lamb ishtu a whirl. The original recipe comes from Kerala in southern India, and it can be made with or without the lamb. Packed with fresh ginger, chilli and black pepper, it might even help you fend off any winter feeries too! It’s deceptively easy to make and great if you’re having guests for dinner but are running short on time.

The first time I had it, it was served with light fluffy appam, which is something like a very fine, light, crumpet-style bread. Unfortunately, making appam requires a special pan and a great deal of practice! If that sounds too much work, some freshly steamed basmati rice or a good plain Naan will work perfectly.