My dog says, "Bow Wow! Fill up my bowl."

Are we talking goat ram or sheep ram? I've had both and both can be good. Your impulse for heavy spices and ethnic treatments are good... if you're talking sheep, I have several recipes I can share with you... I'm reticent to assume goat ram and give recipes... considering your companion flock!

Off the top of my head, I'd be tempted to go with some tagine-type treatment, or make merguez sausage... if you decide to go with the latter and don't have a source of the smaller (sheep) casings they require, let me know and I can hook you up.

It's sheep, don't think we want to make sausage, it's only a 1 lb. package, and probably has fat to trim off.
Speaking of goat, our local butcher shop is selling local goat chorizo, haven't tried it yet.
Recipes for the ram shall be appreciated, thanks, Michelle.

Lilo, definitely curry. Marintate long and simmer long in the curry sauce.

I don't have a recipe but I might try to find one for you.

Sometimes digging around in my cookbooks is a strange and wonderful journey... I have an amazing number of recipes for beaver (?), bear (ew!) and squirrel. I found a lot of recipes that might be interesting starting points for you in two cookbooks in particular:
Traditional Bulgarian Cooking and The LL Bean Game and Fish Cookbook

• (Bulgarian)

• (Bulgarian)

• (Bulgarian) (Don't ask me where the heck to find green almonds!)

• (LL Bean)

• (LL Bean)

• (LL Bean)

• (LL Bean)

I honestly don't know how much of this will be relevant. Wild sheep is different than the domestic kind... it might be a source of inspiration though...

Oh, and what about Alton Brown's Gyros recipe? Since this meat is going to be so, um, pungent, I might be tempted to use part sheep and part beef and/or pork to cut the flavor a little... I also might be tempted to google tagine recipes and try my luck with ones that used a lot of spices and dried apricots and/or cranberries... Your impulse to marinade is probably good...

This might not be a definitive answer, but I hope it's food for thought!

(And if anyone needs any other recipes for antelope, muskrat, possum or raccoon, it turns out I found the mother lode on my bookshelf!)

I've eaten groundhog, squirrel, raccoon, goat, eel, horse, and God know what else over a lifetime, ......but I think I'd draw the line at five year old ram. Might be excellent, will cook lamb, but really have no taste for mutton. I'd simmer it long and gently and do something with spices. You try it first and let us know. LOL.

I haven't tried it myself, but if I had the meat, I'd use some variant of Rick Bayless's recipe for birria -- a sauce with lots of reconstituted dried chiles and slow bake/steaming. The link is to his own variant for a slow cooker.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rick Bayless -- Birria in slow cooker

Mutton's coming back into fashion in the UK, as people are more interested in traditional cooking styles, with local ingredients. I bet if you googled "mutton recipes" you'd find plenty of ideas.

me, I'd probably go for stewing at a low temperature for hours, in a lot of wine.

seems like i remember reading somewhere that soaking meat in milk takes all the 'wild' taste out of it. maybe that would work?
g

Visions of 'mutton dressed as lamb' [madonna for instance], and 'giving someone the cold shoulder' , are dancing in my head. Hope no-one tried to fleece you. Now I feel sheepish.

Thank you all, I copied some recipes and will check if they can be adapted to stew-meat, as most of them call for a large cut of meat. it's the seasoning that are really what matters, I think.

You could try a Navaho Taco. Barbecue! in 1/2" slices and serve on fresh fry bread with ripe beefsteak tomato slices, sliced white onion, lettuce[ maybe romaine], slices of roasted green chiles, & cheese slices, melting from the hot meat and frybread.

:) Best sandwich in my life! Bought at a stand in the desert.

Giving someone 'the cold shoulder' was serving a cold shoulder of mutton. It was a hint in old England, that someone had overstayed their welcome, usually after 3 days. The thick heavy mutton fat congeals when cold, with an unpleasant texture, that is extra greasy and slightly grainy. Families would eat the mutton, but serve lamb to their guests.
Does anyone remember Leg o'mutton sleeves? They were puffy at the top.
Mutton is such an old fashioned food, it has a lot of old fashioned imagery. I'm kind of a mutton head to go on about it.
Sheep were first brought to this country by the Spanish in the southwest.

Here is a link that might be useful: Navaho Indian Taco

could you puree it in a food processor and then add it to something else..?? if the flavor is good it could be added to other soups or stews or it could also be put in a meatloaf or baked into a casserole

Next week it definitely will be defrosted and cooked, we have pretty much decided on the linked recipe, though curry leaves are one ingredient we can't obtain, probably use curry instead. But we are used to substituting and tweaking recipes.
I shall let everyone know how it turns out.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mutton stew