[Tania]

Just had our first Soay Lamb meal (Shoulder) from our own small flock. It tasted delicious but was a bit on the chewy side. I think I may need to cook it differently in future to tenderise it a bit, but was wondering if anyone else with experience of Soay Lamb could advise? The lamb was 12 months old, give or take a week or so, and was an intact male (if that is the right term ?) and the cut of meat used tonight was a shoulder. Any ideas?

[SallyintNorth]

I haven't cooked Soay but I cook 30-month Castlemilk Moorit, which I suspect is very similar.

Long slow and moist.  So pot roast rather than fast oven roast.

Here's an extract of a letter I wrote my sister when I was about to take her some of my CM meat

My favourite recipes so far have been:
•   Leg baked on a bed of onions, squash, dried apricots & cranberries, with a little white wine and loads of English herbs, sauce thickened with a little cream and reduced for serving – unanimously loved even by those who don’t usually like lamb very much, those who don’t like game and a 3 year old who eats everything but often asks for sausages instead - didn’t ask for sausages
•   Chops cooked in your normal way (grilled/oven), served with a little whiskey / pepper sauce, thickened with cream

Any recipe for venison would work, I would think.  We have had chops plain and they were fine, very nice, but I do think the meat benefits from a little bit of some sort of complementing.  I also made a navarin with some chops (casseroled with onion, carrot & turnip or swede, the browned veges being fried with a bit of sugar and then flour before the browned meat being added with stock and English herbs), which is a favourite lamb recipe of mine – BH loved it, though I thought it wasn’t as nice as navarin made with ‘normal’ lamb. 

[Fleecewife]

I always cook Soay in a covered roaster, with a good dash of red wine and maybe some water to keep it moist, and even a little olive oil poured over.  I also use Herbes de Provence and maybe some rosemary sprinkled over.   Soay is an extremely lean meat, so there is no fat to keep the meat moist which is perhaps why yours turned out dry/chewy. It should cook slowly until the meat is falling off the bone - or just falling for a shoulder. Was it a rolled shoulder or cooked flat?  Really needs to be cooked rolled, again to prevent it drying, and can be stuffed with redcurrant jelly or the stuffing of your choice. 
I am a very plain cook so I would serve it with gravy and mint sauce, veg and mash.  Sally's recipe suggestions sound delicious if you prefer to put more effort into your cooking (I'm just lazy  )

For chops and steaks you can cook it more quickly if you like the meat red, but any drop of visible blood in meat makes me retch so I cook chops slowly but thoroughly too. I do crisp up the outside just before serving, a very quick dash of high temp to make the outside tasty.

[Tania]

Thanks for the replies so far. They sound delicious and I have quite a bit to practice with so will hopefully get it right in the end!!
 
As you say the meat is extremely lean and very tasty and although I love lamb - it was nice not to be left with the greasy fatty pans afterwards..

[Fleecewife]

It's really tasty cold - in fact I often cook the shoulder specifically to eat cold, and keep the gigots for hot roasts.