Curry Goat

Chris and I returned to my student stomping ground, Oxford last weekend to pay a visit to Chris’s bro who has just moved back over from Dubai. Amongst his possessions he had stashed a magazine clipping which he kindly saved for me and which covers one of my favourite subjects in the whole wide world - sandwiches. I was drawn immediately to a confit oxtail creation and set out in search of the necessary caudal appendage in Oxford’s Covered Market. Alas, it was not to be - sold out in every one of the five or so butchers inside. And then I spotted the goat. Not advertised as ‘mutton for goat’, which is the usual offering of, well, mutton instead of goat but the genuine, bona fide Billy.

An early afternoon train meant I would get back in time to pick up the other requisite ingredients from Peckham - scotch bonnets, thyme and spring onions. Ingredients secured I scurried back to the house, my eager mind racing with thoughts of welcoming a whole brand new meat into my life. And then a thought struck me…I’d never cooked curry goat before but I would bet my bottom dollar it needs marinating overnight. A quick Google confirmed this. Knowing I wouldn’t have a chance to cook the next day I resolved to push on regardless - a brief 1 hour marinade and 3 hours on the hob.

The results were, quite simply, dribble inducing. I sprung out of bed the next morning and missioned it down Peckham Rye in search of some more goat, striking gold almost instantly. I bought double the amount this time plus some bony bits for extra flavour. This batch would get some overnight marinating, even longer, slower cooking and a healthy mountain of rice and peas on the side.

Making a dish like curry goat takes serious patience and I strongly advise stocking up on snacks to save sanity. The smell of the meat in the marinade is a tease, the smell of the marinated meat hitting the hot pan is enough to make your knees turn to jelly, and the smell as it bubbles away gently on the stove is almost unbearable. The reward however is a deep, complex curry with meat that melts apart when you so much as show it a fork.

Although the second batch of curry was even better than the first due to the extra effort, I’m not convinced it actually was goat meat. The first batch melted almost completely and tasted a little bit like lamb but a bit more beefy. This second batch smelled just a bit too, well, lamby. It also had a huge amount of fat, and tasted suspiciously like mutton. Hmm. Whatever, the resulting curry was still fruity, spicy, fragrant and rich. If you’ve never made curry goat before I strongly encourage you to try it, although avoid, if you can, using mutton dressed as goat.

Curry Goat

For the goat and marinade

1kg goat meat or mutton, diced into large chunks (a few bits of bone for flavour won’t go amiss)
Juice of 1 large lime
1 bunch of spring onions (about six or seven small or three large), sliced
1 tablespoon salt
2 scotch bonnet chillies, finely chopped
Leaves from 1 large sprig of thyme
1 onion
2 fat cloves of garlic, crushed
3 large tomatoes, de-seeded and chopped (you can remove the skins if you like by blanching them in hot water and peeling but I didn’t bother)

For the Jamaican curry powder (makes a nice little batch - adapted a bit from this recipe)

25g coriander seeds, toasted and ground
25g turmeric
25g ground ginger
7 cardamom pods, crushed and seeds ground
25g black pepper
10g ground fenugreek
10g ground cinnamon

1. Mix all the spices together well. Add the meat to a bowl then add the lime juice and salt and mix well. Add 3 tablespoons of spice mix along with the chillies, thyme, onion, spring onion and garlic.

2.
Mix really well, rubbing the marinade into the meat and then cover and refrigerate overnight or for as long as possible.

3.
Heat a heavy based pan with some oil for frying the meat. Dust the excess marinade off the meat and reserve it. Heat some oil in a heavy based pan until very hot and brown the meat on all sides, then set aside.

4.
In the same pan, fry the reserved marinade for a few minutes. Add back the meat, together with the tomatoes and enough water to cover the meat. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat, cover and simmer on the lowest heat possible for 3 hours or until the meat is falling apart and the gravy coats the back of a spoon.

5.
Serve with rice and peas.