Roasted Lamb's Head

Finally roasted the lamb's head. It sat in the fridge defrosting for a couple of days, looking at me balefully (see below) while I figured out when I might have the time to do it.Precious few recipes around, and this one for Roasted Lamb's Head, which surfaced in a bunch of places (I link to this site because it gave the actual citation for the recipe), was the only one that didn't have it braised, boiled, or stewed. So I picked it and followed it fairly closely - the only substitution I made was of 2t mixed herbs for the 1-1/2 t oregano. Because I didn't alter the recipe substantially, I'm not going to reproduce it here - I'm just going to talk about the making and the eating.First instruction, to remove the tongue and eyes, was half easy. The head didn't come with the tongue in, I had it separate. So, that was done. The eyes, well, as you can see from the picture above, took a bit of time to learn. For the first eye, I carefully dug about and snipped and lifted with bunches of tools so I would take it out whole, while preserving the fat behind. This frustrating endeavor ended when the eye punctured and I kind of hacked it the rest of the way out.

So for the second eye I didn't much care and I just shoved my boning knife in and sliced around the eye in a conical motion. And it came out quickly and fine. Lesson learned.

The marinade was straightforward. Picture below shows it poured over the warm (and now eyeless) head.

The tongue was harder to skin than I expected. I don't have experience with tongue, so I'm not sure what the problem was, but I suspect I should have simmered it a few minutes longer than the 30 called for. The picture below shows it after boiling but before skinning.
Once I'd skinned it, I put it back in the mouth and marinated as directed. Picture below shows the head after marinating and just before it went into the oven. I had an extra sprig of rosemary and figured it wouldn't hurt.
Cooked it for the requisite time, basting every 20 min or so. Picture below shows it laughing at me as it comes out of the oven. Then the fun began.

"Crack the skull open" says the instructions. To me, this means that the skull will sort of crack open like an egg. Phil suggested cracking it with a cleaver. I said ok, but you're the one doing the cracking. Picture below, with the cleaver quite firmly embedded in the skull and requiring extra measures to extract, shows the result. It does *not* show the brains (literally) and bits of head flying all over the kitchen, nor Phil's clothes in the wash as I blog this. Another method was required.

Fortunately, we have a hacksaw that has been used enough so the paint has rubbed off, and that was employed to finish the job off.

Picture below shows the split skull. The white parts are the brains.
Finally got it plated (see below; jaw and meat on top; brains bottom left; half the tongue bottom right). They call for it served on a bed of parsley surrounded by flowers and tomatoes. Hah! Maybe next time when I have a proper saw available. We got what is shown, with a separate plate of rosemary-creamed vegetables I'll blog another day.Cooking Notes: Do not attempt this if you do not own a reasonably food-safe hacksaw. Whoever said to "crack" it open is a sadist who is laughing at those who are stupid enough to try this approach.

Eating Notes: It was surprisingly good.

The tongue was good meat, but nothing really special. It would be worth trying a recipe specifically designed for tongue, but in terms of non-standard muscle meat, I still prefer heart.

Regarding the rest of the head, it was really fabulous. The meat was flavorful and almost gamey. Phil mentioned that he had a bit that had a really nice sharpness to it. I thought he meant that it was gamey. Then I had the same thing (the cheeks, we think) - about four bites of something with this wonderful taste of Roquefort cheese, and the sharpness of the mold. The brains were a creamy counterpart. Definitely worth the start-up learning curve and (once I have a saw) something I will try again.

Regarding the whole eyeball issue, I cooked the removed, intact eyeball for 10 min when I parboiled the head, then cut it in half and offered it to the cats. They were smelling the meat and demurred, so I said OK, I have to try it, and tried one of the halves. So. Taste-wise it's like marrow, really rich and yummy. But eyes work a lot and have strong filiment things. Plus there's the whole lens and all. So there were textural issues that were a serious challenge. In addition, the brain is going "ick ick ick ick eyeball eyeball eyeball eyeball" and it's a real difficulty. In general? I'll probably stick to marrow bones, which my cultural Ur-brain identifies as "yummy." But I can see why they are considered a delicacy.