Price of Lamb?

Simba_25

think id be a bit warey buying it off ebay lol

beachbeth

Pal wrote:

Lamb is expensive at the moment because it is out of season. Lambs are born in the winter and normally ready about May or June.

You would think this to be the case, but I have found that lamb is still expensive in the spring too. I haven't really noticed any big difference in price at any time of year.

anguk

I can't remember the last time we had a nice lamb roast or chops because it's so expensive. I normally just buy the cheap cuts like shank, neck or breast and make a casserole or stew, that way we still get the lovely taste of lamb but without the high cost.

Ted_Hutchinson

Simba_25 wrote:

think id be a bit warey buying it off ebay lol

It looks like the bidding will reach the "buy it now" price at the bottom of the page.

It's hardly a bargain as you can order Organic Arran lamb direct from the farm for about that price or if you went for the mutton even less. But I'm sure if anyone searched they could pick it up from a local farmer freshly butchered and save delivery.

Edit: In case anyone has problems with the Arran lamb link it opens properly in OE but doesn't work on my version of Mozilla.

beachbeth

Does hoggetts or mutton come in one piece like a joint or is it cut up like stewing meat? If it is one piece, do you get your butcher to cut it up or do you cook it whole?

Frugal_Faerie

Ted_Hutchinson wrote:

It looks like the bidding will reach the "buy it now" price at the bottom of the page.

It's hardly a bargain as you can order Organic Arran lamb direct from the farm for about that price or if you went for the mutton even less. But I'm sure if anyone searched they could pick it up from a local farmer freshly butchered and save delivery.

I'm not sure which one you're looking at but there's a half of lamb (10kg total weight) currently selling at around £23, which I think is the one competitionscafe is referring to, and there's no BIN button on it

Debt_Free_Chick

Ted_Hutchinson wrote:

It looks like the bidding will reach the "buy it now" price at the bottom of the page.

It's hardly a bargain as you can order Organic Arran lamb direct from the farm for about that price or if you went for the mutton even less. But I'm sure if anyone searched they could pick it up from a local farmer freshly butchered and save delivery.

Half an organic lamb at £50 is a bargain! 10 kilo is approximately 20lb so that works out at £2.50 per lb.

Half a lamb should give you one shoulder, one leg, rack, 8-12 chops.

Excellent value.

To compare this with cheap lamb from e.g. Iceland is not appropriate, IMHO. I would rather buy this Arran lamb and cut back on some other part of my food budget to fund the cost.

It's said before here .... good meat is and should be "expensive" or certainly not cheap. Cheap meat is likely to be a huge disappointment as far as taste & texture are concerned .. which to me, is just a waste of money; a waste of an animal (remember it died and possibly lived a miserable life to end up on your plate) and a waste of the farmer going to the bother of rearing it.

Eat good meat, less often if you have to, in order to be able to afford it.

Debt_Free_Chick

beachbeth wrote:

Thanks for all your advice. In what form do you get mutton? Sorry to be thick but Ive never cooked it. I shall definitely try Iceland and keep an eye out in Makro too.

I just visited Morrisons and bought some chops which were much better value than the ones in the CoOp or Sainsburys. I got two packs of decent sized lamb chops (5 in each) and one was 350g for £3.08 and the other 345g for £2.93. I still feel guilty though because its still expensive compared to other meats.

That's £8 a kilo ... or £4 per lb

You'd be better off with half an Arran lamb .... and it's organic!

competitionscafe

Sorry, my mistake - the one I saw on ebay is from a butchers - http://www.parkfarmfood.com/page2.html not direct from a farm - it's up to £35 + £8 delivery now with 6 days to go so unlikely to be a bargain!!

I saw a Lonely Planet guidebook I wanted which would be £12.99 in any bookshop (cover price) (or can be bought online for £9 delivered from Play.com) - sold for £18 (!) on ebay a couple of weeks ago, so you do seem to get some eejits who think 'it must be cheap because it's on ebay' and then end up paying much more than you can buy the item for elsewhere!

competitionscafe

beachbeth wrote:

Does hoggetts or mutton come in one piece like a joint or is it cut up like stewing meat? If it is one piece, do you get your butcher to cut it up or do you cook it whole?

You will usually have to go to a butcher for mutton, in which case they will cut it for you in any way you want (at least mine does, because they have the whole carcass when it comes in and then you tell him what you want) - mutton is better for long slow cooking, especially a stew or casserole/ slow cooker, so you could get diced leg or shoulder meat for this, you could probably slow roast a leg or shoulder too.

As for the half a lamb - you can buy half a lamb (not organic) from £37 (depends on size/weight of the lamb) here:
http://www.tasteelamb.co.uk/lamb.htm

Blackface does half a lamb + a haggis for £58.50 including delivery.
(1 leg, 1 boned and rolled shoulder, 10 chops, flank, 1 Blackface Haggis, kidney.)
http://www.blackface.co.uk/scottish_blackface_lamb.asp

Recipes:
http://www.blackface.co.uk/recipes.asp