Difficulty:[usr 2]
Scrape the potatoes, shell the broad beans. Boil them for a few seconds. remove the skin by simple pressure.
Peel the spring onions. Reserve these vegetables.
Preheat the oven to 230°C (th-7/8).
Divide the kidneys in two. Salt them, pepper them. Let them stiffen in a pan for 1 minute in a little hot olive oil (they must remain rare).
Chop the parsley, thyme, chervil, chives. Mix everything with the breadcrumbs, olive oil and 1/2 tbsp of mustard.
Brush the inside of the shoulder with the remaining mustard. Distribute the herb stuffing and the half-kidneys. Tie loosely to enclose all the elements. Season with coarse salt and pepper. Arrange the roast on a large platter. Split the garlic cloves in half without peeling them. Coarsely chop the onion, carrot, shallot. Spread these vegetables around the shoulder with broken bones and trimmings.
Bake the stuffed shoulder for about 40 minutes (allow 15 minutes of cooking time per pound), basting the meat often and turning it from time to time so that the skin is golden brown and crispy.
Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in butter for 25/30 minutes. Add the onions, savory, beans and tarragon. Salt, cook for another 10 minutes (onions and broad beans must remain crunchy).
Remove the shoulder from the dish, salt it with fine salt. Let stand 10 minutes. Degrease the dish. Deglaze the cooking juices with a glass of water. Filters the juice.
Cut out the shoulder. Surround it with vegetables. Drizzle with hot juice. Serve.
Photo:www.normandie-tourisme .fr
From peasant memory, we have always raised and seen lambs grazing on the herbs of the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, west of Couesnon. Yet the so-called "pre-salty" lamb (grazing land often invaded by the sea) only became fashionable at the beginning of the century with the advent of sea bathing. Tourists loved this little sheep well muscled, around twenty kilos for the biggest ones, so true is the taste of his meat is unique.
Unlike some others, it does not leave a tallow impression in the mouth. In addition it is well made, not greasy at all and a dark pink.
This flavor the lamb acquires throughout its breeding. A month after its birth, from the end of November to January, the lamb goes out with its mother on the "herbus". There he grazes on the mixture of a grass, "fescue", and plants, "orach" and "sea aster". For at least sixty days, the weanling will feed on this grass, highly iodized and salty, one of the secrets of its inimitable flavor. His firmness, he owes it to the efforts he makes to go from the pasture to the sheepfold and from the sheepfold to the pasture.
Thus the lamb travels about 15 kilometers each day avoiding the "criches", sort of streams filled with mud in which some get stuck. The call of the sea is another danger feared by breeders. After the early summer shearing, when the wind from the land begins to blow, it happens that the herd, caught in a kind of madness, throws itself headlong into the sea. The breeder, the shepherd and the dog in a permanent state of alert can not do much and must sometimes resolve to see the animals drown.
During its short life, the salt-meadow lamb remains free!
"This is the price to pay to maintain the tradition of pre-salted farming, a totally extensive farming. The lambs must be free. We only tried to make them a bit more hardy by crossing the traditional Grévie breed with Suffolk or Vendéenne,” says Yannick Frain, one of ten breeders in the bay west of Couesnon.
From then on, we will understand that these lambs, 2000 per year, are more expensive than the others. Only a few butchers sell it, usually from May to October, under the official brand "agneau des herbus".
