The title is pretty self-explanatory to a point. Big Grove Tavern is hosting a special dinner tomorrow where they’ll be serving dishes using just about every part of a whole lamb.
It’s part of the Illionis Stewardship Alliance’s “Local Flavors” dinner series and the purpose of the event is to encourage businesses to buy local food and, in Big Grove’s case especially, not waste any of it.
Big Grove has done specials like this and in the first three years of the initiative they’d used whole pigs. This year, they’re going with a whole lamb.
Chef Jessica Gorin is clearly excited about the event in which patrons can sample the dishes a la carte or as a full meal that she thinks will satisfy two or three hungry folks.
Gorin and her team have been planning out the special menu (which you can see below) for a few months now. Once they settled on lamb as their meat of choice, they took some time to carefully plan.
“Once we had a rough idea of the menu, we took a couple of weeks off to refine the ideas and think about it,” Gorin said. “Then we got back together and figured out the exact details, like, ‘Okay if we’re going to do this, what are the exact components on the plate, where are we going to get the other ingredients’ and stuff like that.”
If you’re familiar with Big Grove’s whole pig dinners, this one will be in even more demand — the lamb is a considerably smaller animal and portions may run out much quicker.
“This animal is going to be more appropriate for a single night event,” Gorin said. “We think we’ll have between 12-15 orders for each special, so we definitely recommend reservations just because we’re going to run out of some plates.”
Find out more about the Illinois Stewardship Alliance dinners here, and check out Big Grove’s menu below.
