Cloven Hoofed Cuisine

More planning went in to tonight's dinner than perhaps any other dinner I've done so far. A friend of mine had a childhood memory of a dish he had at a heritage festival in Edmonton and wanted to try and replicate it. After several conversations we determined that it was probably Jamaican Curried Goat. Finding a decent recipe was a little difficult, but we found one, and then had to go on the hunt for actual goat meat.

I asked the farmer's market and all of the butcher shops in town before getting a phone number to a couple that owns a farm and happens to raise them; occasionally taking them in for slaughter and packaging. Almost immediately after getting the number I find a package of goat meat at the supermarket amongst a bunch of other imported meats. It hadn't been there before, so I guess I totally lucked out.

Sort of. See, I was so excited about finding the meat that I didn't inspect it whatsoever. It was frozen and transferred from New Zealand and the quality of the meat was not so good. The meat was still on the bone and chiselled fragments of bone were present in the meat itself. Large chunks of gristle and fat were also packaged with it. Perhaps that is just how goat is sold. I wouldn't know since I have never bought it before. Anyhow, the cooking process did not go so well as the meat was not tenderizing so well and could not be easily removed from the bones.

The flavor of the curry was quite nice though and it stunk up my apartment very well for several days. I bought the smallest Scotch bonnet pepper - actually a habanero - that I could find, since we were out drinking the night before and I wasn't sure if any of us would be able to stomach the added heat. It was still fairly spicy considering that the pepper was maybe 1/3" square and added to 3 pounds of meat. I had to estimate the Jamaican curry powder myself since it is different than what I have, containing turmeric, fenugreek, coriander, cumin, anise, star anise, pepper, allspice and garlic. The slight baked goods flavor works better with the gamey meat, I guess. I expected that goat would taste similar to lamb, but since it was dredged in sauce there's really no way to tell. I had to thicken the curry with a slurry because the original recipe called for too much water, and that saved it quite well, I think.

The goat is supposed to be served with warmed pita bread and I made some Cucumber Raita in case it was too spicy. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of telling my company that I had strained the yogurt through a pair of my (clean!) underwear because I never have any cheesecloth and I think that deterred them from trying it. It was difficult eating the goat with the pita because of the bones, but I think that'd definitely be the way to go otherwise.

I served a simple Cumin Garlic Couscous along with this, which was probably prepared in under 10 minutes amongst doing other things. Everyone said they liked this dish, and it's hard not to like simply flavored couscous. I kind of wish I'd put a bit more heat into it, but it was good. I also made use of some leftover Corn on the Cob as part of a Bajan Beans dish. Shannon loved this dish especially, with a nice combination of crunchy cashews, crisp corn and starchy beans.