CURRIED GOAT

After spending a lot of time out of the kitchen, either through travelling or socialising in the many wonderful restaurants in Shanghai, it was nice to find the two of us home on a Friday night with a nice relaxing weekend ahead. The perfect time to pull that goat I had in the freezer out and put it to good use. Not a whole goat you understand, but a pack which I had been planning to turn into a goat stew or curry for a some time.

The magazines all seemed to have goat recipes in the last month or so, so no problem there. Realised most of the recipes needed overnight marinating. The day before we were going to eat it I took it out the freezer. Once defrosted I was surprised to see so many bones in it. Shouldn't have been surprised really as Chinese love bones. I pulled some lamb chops out of the freezer, if there wasn't enough meat on the goat then this was closest to it I had. I marinated overnight. The smell was encouraging. This wasn't an Indian curry which I am used to cooking this was more African, I think. It was called Carnival Curry, and it didn't come from one of my magazine recipes but from A Valentine Warner book which had lingered on my bookshelf for many years.

With cinnamon, allspice, cloves and nutmeg in the ingredients I knew it was going to taste good. After marinating there was a long slow cooking process, 2 1/2 hours in the oven. So although overall the time was long most of it was unattended leaving me to do other things.  The smells coming from the oven as the cooking progressed were delicious. Before the end of cooking I put some sweet potatoes into the oven and cooked some aubergines which I blended with garlic, olive oil and a touch of smoked paprika. I thought these flavours would go well with the curry.

There hadn't been quite enough meat so I popped the lamb chops into a pan just before the end of cooking.

The finished result was good. I loved the slightly stronger flavour of the goat, the mashed sweet potato and aubergine went well with it. A nice cold beer was all that was needed to finish it off. I was very pleased with the finished result, and more importantly so was my husband. I would cook this again for sure.

 

The recipe ingredient list is long, but I had most of them in the cupboard. 

Please don't be put off by the list of ingredients, it really is a very simple recipe and well worth pulling out all those spices lurking in the cupboard.

CARNIVAL GOAT CURRY  serves 10. ( I just cut the recipe down)

2kg boned leg or shoulder of goat or mutton, cut into 5cm pieces

6 fat garlic cloves finely sliced

6 fresh bay leaves ( I substituted dry)

2 cinnamon sticks

10 black peppercorns

2 tsp mild curry powder

1 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 nutmeg grated

1-2 hot chillies chopped with seeds

5 tbsp malt vinegar

sunflower oil for cooking

2 sliced onions

2x 400g tins tomatoes

1 heaped tbsp salt

1 heaped tbsp dark muscovado sugar

1 tbsp black treacle

150mls water

Put meat into a large bowl and add first 9 ingredients (through to chillies)

Add 3 tbsp of the vinegar and rub into the meat. Leave in the fridge for at least 3 hours or overnight if you can.

Pre-heat oven to 170c (325f)

Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan add brown the meat. Be careful not to burn the garlic. Do in batches if necessary. Transfer to a large, flame proof lidded casserole dish. 

Peel and slice onions. Add more oil to the pan and gently fry onions until soft and lightly coloured. Tip them into the casserole with the meat. Use the rest of the vinegar to de-glace the pan. pour over the meat. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring it all to a boil. 

Cover with lid and put into the oven for 2-21/2 hours until meat is tender. 

SO GOOD TO BE BACK BLOGGING AGAIN. I MISSED IT............................