Bamb or Meef?

The problem with freezing pieces of diced meat off the bone without putting a label on the bag is that you can’t recognise it when you take it out of the freezer. That’s how Martin came to prepare some beef shoulder steak thinking it was mutton on Sunday evening. He made up an African-inspired recipe, frying shallots and garlic with carrots, browning the meat, adding stock, tomatoes, chillies and plenty of peanut butter before finishing it off with some unrefined palm oil and serving it with polenta (or mealie pap if you’re being African; it’s the same, really). Of course by the time the stuff was partly cooked, we could all tell it was beef from the smell, and with an extra fifteen minutes in the pressure cooker (probably an extra 30 in a casserole) it was fine, and tasted great.

Personally I never really know what I’m eating – unless it’s fish, I can recognise fish all right. But my tinned cat meat could be goat, rat or Desert Orchid as far as I know. It’s still tasty.