Shoulder

A little before the Easter break, the turn of shoulder of lamb came round again, with a fair sized one being sourced from Ben the Butcher in Upper High Street. A butcher who, on this occasion, was selling a good deal of dressed and sauced meat for barbecues. As was the butcher in Ashtead village the last time we passed - although to his credit he was also selling white puddings from Slomers on the last two occasions we passed him. But I do not see barbecue as a good sign.

This shoulder weighed in at 2.7kg or very nearly 6lbs. I was a little surprised at it costing something over £20 a kilo, the sort of money I associate with fore rib of beef. Maybe just before Easter is a dear time for sheep.

Settled on reference 2 as the appropriate precedent and put the shoulder into the oven at 160°C at 14:55, aiming for around 18:00. Snapped here at around 17:50.

Odd how different it looks 20 minutes later. Maybe some trick of the light. There is a strip light in the kitchen: maybe that is different in some significant way from the energy saving bulbs in the dining room. On the other hand, maybe the kitchen light was off and sunlight was coming in from the west facing window. The dining room tends to be rather dark, so the light was probably on. The windows, such as they are, face south. All sorts of permutations.

While the shoulder was on the go, veggie stock was in preparation, with my having kicked that off rather earlier, at 14:00. Parsnip, carrot, celery, some greens, a couple of sprouts, an odd mushroom and some left over mashed potato. Passed through the blender in due course, yielding a rather thicker stock, more a thick soup, than is my custom. But roux'd up in the usual way.

On the plate. Gravy visible upper right: I take my gravy more with the rice than with the meat.

Towards the end of the first sitting.

Took some cold for lunch, possibly in sandwiches, the following day, before heading off to the hospital for a blood test, and then onto Ashtead to pick up the Proctor noticed at reference 3 from the picture framer at reference 4. 

The cold light of the kitchen again, in the snap above?

And a very good job she had done too. Now hanging under 'Olympia': quite a difference considering that the Proctor is only sixty years later than the Manet.

I think we acquired the red mackerel line when we were living in Norwich, several hundred yards of the stuff, for flying dustbin bag kites, all the thing for a while. Very impressive how well, how high, they would fly - once one got the length and weight of the tail right. One could also use fertilizer bags. The line has served in various capacities since and I still have a little left on the reel. Hanging under the roof of the garage, naturally.

Note also the thumb drum hanging down upper centre. We even heard one being played once, in a two man mime version of Hamlet. See reference 5 - which reminds me that it was not mime at all. Just foreign language, in part or in whole.

Back from Ashtead to more cold meat, but starting off with what was left of the gravy served as soup. Rather good.

Not much left after this; down to snacking. That said, in the event, I think we got a third day out of it. More left on the bones than one might have thought.

PS 1: some children's bricks were cleared out today, on their way to a charity collection bag. I was a little sorry to see them go, some of them having been with us for more than fifty years and seen good service in that time. We wondered how many parents of today would bother with such things. Straight into the skip! But one has to move on.

PS 2: the Ovalhouse of reference 5 seems to have been rebranded as the Brixtonhouse of reference 6. Haven't got to the bottom of that one yet.

References

Reference 1: https://slomersltd.co.uk/. We get rings rather than sticks, which are all that I can see here.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/06/sheep-shoulder-day.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/trolley-967.html.

Reference 4: https://www.ashteadframingworkshop.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/11/replication.html.

Reference 6: https://brixtonhouse.co.uk/.

Group search key: 20260325.