I made a simple lamb stew from Phaidon's The Silver Spoon -- it's got fresh sage, fresh rosemary, garlic, white wine and white wine vinegar. The recipe's great, I've made it before, but the Costco lamb I used this time is very mutton-y.

What can I do with this to disguise the flavor? Any ideas? Should I just suffer through? Should I throw it out? I hate throwing perfectly good food out. I'd prefer to remake it in some way, but I have no ideas.

I'd just eat it (many thousands of generations have survived mutton and goat ).

OR, maybe fight fire with fire, um, strong flavours. Turn it into a curry, for example?

Great idea, Jude. Curry it is. It might be one of the stranger curries I've ever made, with all those Italian flavors. But I actually like goat curry, so this sounds like the best solution. Thanks.

I was going to suggest ketchup.

Goat... I am dying to try it. Do you have any recipe recommendations for goat?

Sorry, no. I've just had it at Mexican and Indian restaurants and prepared by a Jamaican friend. It seems to always be paired with strong flavors. The meat itself has a very familiar flavor -- it's reminiscent of goat cheese. I like it.

You're in Southern California Nancy. Look carefully at the Mexican restaurants in the Latino neighborhoods. The ones that serve goat paint the word "birria" on an outside wall of the restaurant. That's what you're looking for: birria. The restaurants that serve it are called something like birriaria, though I'm sure that's not exactly right.

Call around to Indian restaurants too. I've found it served in Indian restaurants in New Mexico and Colorado; surely you can find it in the California melting pot.

As for the young mutton, I have a lot so I'm making half into shepherd's pie. After all, that's what they're herding, right? Lots of cheesy cauliflower mash to disguise the problem.

I think I heard a bit about the mexican restaurants serving goat on NPR a few weeks back. I'll have to try to find one!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, Morroccan recipes, and African...

Good also for mutton

Yum-O!

If you have any Caribbean restaurants (Haitian, Jamaican, Puerto Rican) in your area, they make goat also. I had curried goat in a Jamaican restaurant years back that was delicious (and spicy).

I have never tried to make it at home.

Goat is great!
As for the mutton, the key is a recipie that needs very very slow cooking at low temperatures. 4-5 hours in a 150oC oven should do it. This breaks down the tough muscle fibres and makes it fall apart. Mutton actually is nicer tasting that lamb, just tougher so needs a different way of cooking.

As for the Italian muttony-lamb stew, oddly, it turned into the best Indian curry I have ever made.

It baffles me. I use the most highly-regarded Indian cookbooks, follow recipes to the letter, yet this hodge-podge of odds and end from the fridge turned out better than anything the James Beard Award winning authors have directed me to make.

Thanks for telling me not to throw it out, Jude.