Blackface Meat Company Mutton Review

With Blackface Meat Company  being long term, trusted suppliers to some of London's best-loved restaurants, including The Ivy, Fergus Henderson's St. John and Rowley Leigh's Cafe des Anglais, you can imagine my pleasure at being asked to try some of their meat.

 Furthermore when I read that their lamb was  rated 15 in The Independent ‘Best 50 British Foods’ and that they have a string of awards,I was more than just hopeful of a good meal with the Blackface mutton that I chose.

I have long preferred to eat when I can, good produce, meat and fish that are, have a good life and are produced naturally.

Blackface Meat Company go so far as to make sure the flavour of the products on the land that the animals eat are perfect too. After caring for the animals the meat is matured using traditional methods to develop the tenderness and flavour. 

In the case of the mutton I have here, the sheep live on the heather, wild mosses, blaeberries and grasses. As a result their meat is tinted a deep red (ah that's why!!) and you can clearly taste the herby flavours of wild plants.To enhance the flavour even more, they hang all the mutton for a full two weeks.

I just need to ensure all that effort is brought to the plate in the best way. As I unpacked it from the chilled box it arrived in, I was quite surprised to see the colour of the meat, its a rich almost beef looking product, this did not change in the cooking.

I decided to cook a tagine of mutton, I was tempted by the recipe suggestions that Blackface Meat Company have here however as you all know by now, I tend to add my own experiments  and loving spice as I do here it is. I
In the same spirit feel if you decide to make this, feel free to add less spice,add fruit to make it an authentic Moroccan style tagine, whatver you fancy but definitely don't skip trying the blackface mutton.


Blackface Mutton Tagine

Serves 4


1kg cubed Blackface mutton
1 tablespoon of olive oil.
1 tin chopped tomatoes
2-3 large vine tomatoes
1 tin of chickpeas
2 large chopped onions
1 red pepper chopped
1 yellow pepper chopped
4 cloves garlic
1 square inch freshly grated ginger
2 heaped teaspoons of Ras el hanout spice mix
1 tsp turmeric
A pinch of chilli, (I added two as we like tagine spicy)
Fresh stock about 250mls or a chicken stock cube in 250mls boiling water.

Fresh chopped coriander to garnish

I browned the mutton first to seal it  the aroma was so very good, despite mutton being known as a tougher meat I had a tiny piece and the texture was soft and tender, the taste rich, and you can actually get a herby taste.
I put on a plate to rest while I dealt with the other ingredients.


I fried the onions for a couple of minutes adding the ginger and garlic to gently cook for about 2 minutes. I added this to the tagine and then added all the other ingredients and gave it a thorough stir, finally adding the mutton.
 Cook on low for approx 6-8 hours.

Voila, a beautiful mutton tagine, close your eyes, imagine how the best mutton tastes and that's what we ate!!
Complemented by the spices it was exquisite, succulent and flavoursome.  We all loved it, its the sort of meat that you just want to try totally unadorned of spice, but it just is so good seasoned and a with a rich sauce to moisten it further.

Conor deemed this the best tagine we have ever had. Paige just said mmmmmmm, when its in your mouth there is no work and how all meat should be.
Chris said little a sign of total enjoyment, we all emptied plates and scraped ever last bit from the tagine.

I am keen to try more of Blackface meats as soon as possible.

Their brochure and price list are here for you to peruse and I highly recommend you do.

http://www.blackface.co.uk/images/Blackface-Brochure.pdf
http://www.blackface.co.uk/images/BlackfaceMeatPriceListAug2011.pdf