Mint Tagliatelle with Slagel Farms Ram Merguez ($14)

Louis john Slagel was dropping off my order and asked if we were interested in taking on a ram that he needed to dispatch. to be completely honest I wanted the skull. We get a pigs head or two in every week for porchetta di testa and scrapple. we keep the skulls, paint them and soon they're going to be on display. we also have a cow skull and some sheep skulls, but a ram skull... that would be cool, especially with the horns and everything! i was also interested in the prospect of working with an animal i'd never worked with. so last wednesday when the ram arrived we all immediatly went for the head and to our dismay the horns had been chopped off. oh well, it's still a damn cool skull! So now what to do with the meat.. after a little reseach merguez seemed to be the best option.

so now we have the dish: ram merguez, mint tagliatelle, dandelion greens, calabrian chilies, pine nuts, pecorino and accented with a little white wine and butter.

farmer (local/regional) and humanely raised