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I wonder about how and when it is used. I expect locally or only in small amounts, which kind of butcher could deliver enough mutton or lamb tenderloins for a dinner party seating 300? I reckon hardly any, and even the sheep farming community on Texel would be stretched to take care of it. However mutton is not an obsolete word, it isn't, because unless people have stopped eating it, if it is then actually mutton, it is not permissible to call it lamb. Just like with the expression, mutton dressed as lamb, it's actually a no no. In India mutton is still used to describe mutton. In many Arabic countries, or/and Islamic countries, where pork is forbidden, lamb is eaten a lot more but so is mutton. The difference is, taste.. in European and North American countries people do not appreciate the strong and dominating taste of mutton. Yet, if cooked by good cooks, like those in India, like in Morocco, etc, it can be delicious.
The muscle that gets used least of all, tenderloin, from a cow, is not huge, normally one Chateaubriand can be cut, and it is served for two, as it is a pity to divide this prime cut. After that there are the tournedos, which are the finest and softest steaks, then the filet mignon which is the tailpiece of the tenderloin, as it tapers off, point-like, it cannot be cut into steaks that is why it is used for Tournedo Stroganoff, etc. Considering that there are only 2 tenderloins in an animal, and even in a cow they are not very large, it is not hard to understand why this meat is so expensive, there is no fibre and so it is like cutting butter. Take a sheep or a lamb, these are far smaller than a cow, so how much meat is there on a tenderloin? Hardly any is the answer. So I'd say depending on the size of a sheep, you could get a few cuts off 1 tenderloin, in a lamb I expect you could eat it like a small Pork tenderloin which is served whole to 1 person. Maybe a lamb tenderloin would be so small you'd need 2 for 1 person, I'm a Dutch-trained restaurant chef with 40 years of experience in all things related to nutrition but have never actually come across this. Continued >
As far as I am concerned you only see lamb these days on menus. My local Pakistani butcher distinguishes sheep and lamb - but it would be odd to see such a distinction on a menu. Evidently in a non-English speaking country you could see sheep on a menu. In India they might well refer to goat meat as sheep meat.
Which was why I entered lamb fillet but now that I have found myself to be wrong, I need to climb down gracefully. Bear in mind this is not necessarily speaking about the UK market.
Hello Textpertise. I am sorry, but I disagree about the evidence not being there. The word is schaaphaasjes, referring to the meat of a schaap, and not lamshaasjes, referring tot the meat of a lam. By the way, lamshaasjes is a much more common dish in the Netherlands as well.
Hi Moira. The animal is called a sheep. When meat from a sheep is served, it is normally called either mutton (from a mature sheep) or lamb (from a young sheep). By analogy, for the animal known as a cow or a bull/steer, when meat from a cow or bull/steer is served, it is normally referred to as either beef (from a mature animal) or veal (from a young animal). In this translation, we do not have any information about the age of the sheep. The evidence for selecting either lamb or mutton simply is not there. I agree that mutton tenderloin could be a valid translation of the term if you knew that it was mutton but fillet of lamb sounds much more appetising.
Lamb and sheep are differerent dishes and I agree that you would come across lamb more, on English menus, but that would be because it is lamb and not mutton. It is like veal and beef: same animal, but different kind of meat. So I would opt for mutton tenderloin. Filet and haas are different parts of an animal so I would not use filet.
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Answers
12 mins confidence:
sheep tenderloin, sheep filet
Explanation: It is considered to be the best part of meat
Example sentence(s):
We had sheep tenderloin, fried potatoes and onions.
Gunter Verbeeck Belgium Local time: 22:27 Specializes in field Native speaker of: Flemish
