Butchering has helped me gain more connection with the meat I eat and develop more appreciation for my food. Last year when I first started homestead butchering I was inspired to learn how to use parts of the animal that would otherwise have been discarded.
I have a pretty open mind, but I'll admit the first time I worked with a sheep's head it was a bit strange holding the head with open eyes looking back at me. But the whole point was to help me get past my own preconceptions about what is food and what is not. I am glad I did.
This post is an effort to document what I discovered to be an amazing and underutilized food. I hope that with an open mind others can learn what otherwise may be a daunting and unfamiliar way to cook an uncommon, yet easily and freely acquired food; I've talked to several sheep ranchers/homesteaders and they all simply discard the sheep heads into the forest or bury them and would be happy to part with them to someone that appreciates them.
Last winter I experimented with cooking liver pate, lambs tongue in lengua tacos and sheep's head.
Last year I used sheep's head to make a "head cheese" following recipes to make pig's head cheese. The result turned out ok, but it was not quite as gelatinous as I imagine pig's head cheese to be (I haven't tried it yet but I just scored two pigs head so expect a post on that coming soon :P) and so it didn't hold up to slicing too well. The lamb's head cheese that I made had more of a consistency of a tuna salad. A lot of it ended up going into stews instead being eaten as sliced sandwich meat.
This winter I have been helping with butchering at the homestead as part of my work/trade for a private home. As an added bonus I scored some parts of the animals that the customers didn't want, including several sheep heads.
I wanted to try something new with these recently acquired sheep's heads.
I began experimenting with roasting them for several hours. So far I made 2 curries and one chili with the roasted sheep's head meat. I think it could easily lend itself to numerous other types of dishes as well.
The results were fantastic!
Follow along and I'll share my recipe for a delicious roasted sheep's head curry with you.
_
I just pulled this head out of the freezer. I had skinned it at the same time as I skinned the rest of the animal earlier this fall. Skinning the head is not that much effort, especially when compared to the rest of the job. At the same time, I also cut out the tongue and froze it separately for slow cooking together with several other tongues for another meal.
I roasted the head at 325 in a cast iron dutch oven uncovered for 2 hours (one hour each side) with a little olive oil. And then 30-60 more minutes covered. I am still playing around with the timing and temperature, so feel free to adjust. Basically I was looking for the meat coming off the bones relatively easily and also trying not to cook it too long so it stays moist.
If it doesn't look like there's much meat on this skull, you'd be surprised like I was!
The neck itself has quite a bit of meat as you can see from this back view.
And as I begin pulling back meat from the jaws there is quite a bit that begins to be revealed. I pretty much pick meat off the bones as clean as I can.
The only bits that I don't eat are saved for pooch: the upper palate, eyes and inner nose lining chopped up for easy portioning. He is so grateful!
Here is all the meat that came off the head. It's a lot of meat!
Looks delicious doesn't it? Actually it's quickly becoming my favorite part of the sheep. The reason is because it has a pretty decent fat content. And it's not the kind of fat that you keep chewing on, it's quite soft. So the head roasts very nicely, the outer bits getting crispy. Somewhat akin to a roasted pork butt but also very different :)
Closeup so that you can see the sheep's head meat is not weird at all. It's actually pretty amazing.
After that's all done I save the bones for making a soup stock and then after that to plant under some trees :)
Well the meat is amazing as is straight up or with some sauce on top. This time I decided to make a curry, sort of a cross of a vietnamese and indian curry. I started with onions, garlic, ginger and tomatoes as a base. Added some venison broth (thanks to a friend who dropped off some rib bones & meat he didn't want!) and then blended with the immersion blender.
Added some spices to my taste, some roots and simmered on the wood stove for a few hours until guests arrived. They didn't know they were going to be fed sheep's head but they loved it!!
I hope this post inspires you to look at the food you eat differently and perhaps venture out of the norm to try some different parts of the animal that is normally just discarded.