I am done with goat. I will order it out, if we go to a Somali or other East African restaurant, but I don’t think I’ll buy it and cook it again.
It’s not the flavor, which is very good. But the “stew meat,” which is what I can get at local Somali groceries is really hard to work with! It’s tough and full of bones, including small, sharp bones. The bones fall out or are visible after a couple hours of stewing, so there’s not much chance of putting one in your mouth, but still. I just don’t feel like I get enough meat for my buck with goat at the moment.
For my very flavorful goat stew, I started with this recipe from the New York Times cooking site. This month a group and I are focusing on recipes from this site, which is deep and wide, and incredibly well indexed and organized. It’s replaced epicurious.com as my go-to recipe site. I like the options for anything I want to cook. I can adapt and combine (like with the Hoppin’ John Cassoulet).
marinating goat
Before cooking, I looked at a number of other Caribbean recipes. My favorite site is Cook Like A Jamaican. Since the Times recipe didn’t specify a type of curry powder, I used Fay’s recipe for Jamaican curry powder. Even though I made a small batch, it exhausted my turmeric, allspice, and coriander! And I used a mix of whole spices (mustard and cumin) that I toasted and ground, and others I had only in ground form (I didn’t have fenugreek at all). I also substituted a large sweet potato for the regular potatoes.
Again, I have to smile and feel smug when I cook with cancer-fighting ingredients like ginger, turmeric, garlic, and sweet potatoes. In the end, this stew was flavorful and good, and I would make it again with lamb or beef or even chicken (Fay has a chicken curry recipe here). It was even good as leftover stew, and made enough for six servings.
Caribbean Goat Curry
- 2 pounds boneless lamb (or goat) stew meat, cut into 2-inch chunks
- 4 tablespoons curry powder, separated
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt (I use less and offer more at the table)
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 large white onion, chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
- ½ inch fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
- 4 whole allspice berries
- 2 thyme sprigs, leaves stripped
- 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, more as needed
- 1 ½ cups diced potato, sweet potato is great
- 1 cup diced carrots
- 1 to 2 small Scotch bonnet or other hot red/green peppers, seeded and chopped
- Cooked white rice or coconut rice, (coconut rice is just made with half water / half coconut milk)
- Lime wedges, for serving
- Fresh cilantro leaves, for serving
- In a food processor, combine 2 Tbs curry powder, salt, ground ginger, pepper, onion, garlic, fresh ginger, allspice, thyme and 2 Tbs oil. Puree until smooth. Put in a bowl with the lamb. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge to marinate 2-24 hours.
- In a large dutch oven, heat 2 Tbs oil and brown the goat on all sides. Do this in batches if necessary– don’t crowd the goat. If needed, add more oil for batches.
- When the meat is browned, return it to the pot and cover with water. Simmer for 1 hour or more. Goat is best simmered longer to break it down… Lamb or beef don’t need as much stewing time.
- Add potatoes and carrots and pepper and remaining 2 Tbs curry powder and cook uncovered at least 30 minutes, until vegetables are fork tender.
- If you want, remove the meat and vegetables and reduce the sauce. It can be pretty thin at first, but you need the liquid to cover the meat and vegetables. We didn’t mind the thin sauce, and I don’t have the patience to remove everything to cook down the sauce!
- It is worth it to make the rice with coconut milk. You can also just make the rice and pour some coconut milk over it before topping it with the stew (I did this with the leftovers to use up the can of coconut milk). I also served it with black beans.