How Do You Tenderize Goat?

[jfrater]

Hi everyone,

I recently bought some goat and I am wanting to use it in place of Chicken in Heston Blumenthal's Chicken Tikka Masala recipe. I am essentially following along with what he does for the chicken - marinating it in a marinade of Greek yoghurt and garam masala. Does anyone know if this will make the meat tender? I am using diced cubes of goat and I will grill them along the same lines as the chicken in Heston's recipe - which is here: http://www.dominicsayers.com/documents/ChickenTikkaMasala.pdf

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Should be OK, but if you're looking for a softer texture you may want to pressure-cook it or something before finishing it on the grill - exposure to open flame will make most raw goat (even kid, which is far more forgiving) toughen up like nobody's business.

Incidentally, I normally marinade goat cubes in beer blendered with a bit of papaya or babaco for 2-3 days before pressure cooking and then grill-finishing if I want seared flavour.

[jfrater]

Thanks Panaderia - what do you think about sous viding it for a while? I am not sure what temperature would be best but is that an option do you think? And then just a very quick grill to blacken some of the marinade...

[Panaderia Canadiense]

That would probably work. I don't do SV myself (the basic rig comes in at over $1K down here) so I can't help with temperatures or times, but what I've read of it makes me think you'd get crazy tender meat that way, particularly if you can go very low and very slow. Of course, with SV, you should also be able to seal some of the yogurt/masala mix in with the meat while it cooks.

[Butterbean]

Low and slow is how I do goat and it will just be fall off the bone tender.

[jfrater]

Panderia I was considering doing that with the yoghurt mix but I can't find a temperature for sous vide goat and if it is anything like beef it would need to bathe for 24 hours to be perfectly tender by the looks of things (based on chuck steak). I am just going to leave it marinating as long as I can and hope for the best!

[ChrisTaylor]

The thing about goat:

-- in my experience, at least, goat is a funny beast. from the meat-eating perspective, I mean. young goat, as in baby goat, is already tender. it's what I'd use. I mean, it's more expensive and harder to find--in Australia, at least--but the price/effort difference is worthwhile. old goat might be flavoursome (altho' young goat is delicious too, so don't feel you're giving up flavour for tenderness) but it can be quite tough. so. in short. buy baby goat and you're half way there, pretty much.

[jfrater]

Panderia I was considering doing that with the yoghurt mix but I can't find a temperature for sous vide goat and if it is anything like beef it would need to bathe for 24 hours to be perfectly tender by the looks of things (based on chuck steak). I am just going to leave it marinating as long as I can and hope for the best!

[jfrater]

ChrisTaylor: this was goat from a wild game company - their products are usually amazing - unfortunately I didn't pay attention to whether it was kid or not. I guess we will find out tonight when I try to eat it. Maybe I ought to add the goat to the curry sauce much earlier while it simmers - rather than adding it at the end after a blast of heat.

[ChrisTaylor]

What cut is it?

[jfrater]

Chris I am not sure to be honest - I bought it about a month ago and didn't check the label when I took it out to marinate it - it is cubed so I am guessing it is meant for stewing purposes.

[Broken English]

I've never used sous vide on goat, but I'd think that 48 hours at 62.5 would be a pretty good bet, that works pretty well for pork belly, plus you can always test and increase the time if you need to.

[jfrater]

Thanks Broken English I opted for slowly cooking them in the curry sauce - they have two more hours to go (which is good because I have tested a piece and it is tough as old boots!)

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Do let us know how it turned out....

[jfrater]

Panaderia - I opted to slowly stew it for 3 hours in the tikka masala sauce - it was meltingly tender