Lamb is a common term for what you will see in a butchers shop if you are buying meat as well as a young sheep running around in a paddock and also in the occasional nursery rhyme too, so let’s get down to it, what is lamb?
Lamb as a meat and also as a protein source is usually the term used for sheep’s meat in a few countries which include Australia and New Zealand too.
It can also, as the sheep gets older, be called hogget and mutton, but it is usual to see in the butcher lamb cuts of meat rather than the latter.
Lamb is the name given to a sheep in its first year and its meat is also called lamb.
The meat of a lamb used for eating is usually taken between the ages of one month and one year as this is the best time to get the tenderness in the meat and as the sheep gets older the hogget and mutton gets a bit tougher and also has a lot more flavour too.
The lamb generally gets cut into nine different cuts of meat, scrag end (neck), middle neck, best end (neck), loin, chump, leg, shank, shoulder and the breast.