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Carron

Dec 22, 2008, 3:58 PM

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Borrego for Christmas

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Well, our adult children in Del Rio begged us for either a cabrito or borrego for Christmas dinner. We had a 8-9 month old borrego (lamb). Went out to the ranch first thing this morning and dispatched him.. After a field dress, we brought him into town and we have spent most of the afternoon hanging and skinning. Lots of gorgeous meat and we raised him ourselves. A heavy activity, requiring more muscle and energy than we will probably ever have again. Hope the kids appreciate our effort. I suspect this is the last time we will be physically able to do this. Our children just don't (want to) understand how old and tired we really are. They all work such long, erratic hours at their jobs they probably don't have time to notice.

Wish I knew how to cure a lambskin. The one we have is large, thick, and luxurious. Would love to have it by my bedside, or in the bathroom.

Anyway, our Mexican daughter-in-law wants to do "barbacoa" like her mother (from Guerrero) makes it. She is a wonderful cook. Hope our borrego measures up to her mother's recipe. !Buen provecho!!

(This post was edited by Carron on Dec 22, 2008, 4:02 PM)

thriftqueen

Dec 23, 2008, 4:51 PM

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Re: [Carron] Borrego for Christmas

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I just remarked yesterday that if I had an acreage that I would raise a couple of lambs. In the olden days our kids had 4-H lambs, the ones that did not make the sale we had butchered. Had never had lamb stew before. It's to die for good, much better than beef stew.

Carron

Dec 26, 2008, 7:51 AM

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Re: [thriftqueen] Borrego for Christmas

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We raise a few goats and a few lambs on our ranch. We really don't eat much of either because our livestock has a good reputation with our neighbors and they usually buy ours before we can decide to use them ourselves. I admit we treat them like mascotas and hate to do the actual job of killing and field dressing.

Our "lamb" was huge--probably 8 or 9 months, 60-75 pounds. The meat was gorgeous. When we took it, simply skinned and gutted, across the border into Texas, the agricultural inspector raved about how good it looked.

My son's Mexican mother-in-law then took over. She said she would make "barbacoa" by steaming the meat in a pot. She first ground chiles anchos in her molcajate (lots of flavor, very little heat), then added garlic powder, black pepper, and salt. Cut the meat into smaller pieces, then rubbed the pieces of meat with the "dry rub". Put them into a pot with hojas de laureles (bay leaves), added some water, and let cook several hours until most of the water was gone and the meat was shredded and falling off the bones.

Everyone was thrilled with the results. Perfect for tacos or with my contribution of dressing, sweet potato casserole, and cranberry sauce. Que sabrosa! Even within the family we now have more orders for borrego than we can currently fill.

I have read that people who raise their own sheep and goats usually let them grow to a much larger size than do commercial producers. It doen't cost us much to keep them until they are huge and they don't get tough or gamey.