Some years ago, sitting on a train somewhere in West Bengal, flicking through a dog-eared Indian guidebook for the hundredth time, it dawned on me that the mutton we had been happily eating for the past three months was probably goat, rather than the sheep we’d assumed. I still remember the shock – after all, in the provincial Britain of the 1990s, goat’s cheese still seemed pretty exotic.
Last month, I went into my local butcher’s looking for lamb mince for a shepherd’s pie and was persuaded to try goat instead – and very nice it was too. Not long afterwards, I finally made it to Kricket, a wildly popular “Indian-inspired” restaurant in Soho, London, whose goat dishes include a rich, offal-spiked keema and a curry described by Time Out as the best thing on the menu.
Why has goat, which has long been popular with Caribbean, Middle Eastern and Asian cooks, suddenly found favour with British chefs such as Fergus Henderson, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jeremy Lee, who reckons it makes “faggots to die for” – and should the rest of us follow their lead?
Sustainability
There are 45,000 commercial dairy goats in the UK, with demand predicted to rise by 500%. That means an awful lot of male kids that can either be raised for meat – or euthanised at birth. If you eat goat’s cheese or drink goat’s milk, you should consider eating goat meat as well.
Health
Goat is lower in saturated fat and cholesterol than most red meat, which makes it a good choice of protein for us omnivores.
Flavour
Although it is often dismissed as tough or unpleasantly strong, not all goat is alike. Kid, like lamb, is tender and delicate, while older animals are ideal for long, slow cooking and stand up well to strong spicing. James Whetlor, the supplier responsible for bringing goat to the attention of many chefs, recommends buyers ask for kid or nanny goat – “they behave quite differently in the pot”. Though supermarkets are yet to embrace the trend (Morrisons is the only one to stock it in selected branches), goat can increasingly be found at farmer’s markets and online, as well as in butcher’s catering to communities that have long appreciated it.
The thrill of the new
As Whetlor explains in his book, Goat: Cooking and Eating, because goat is central to so many cuisines around the world, it is the perfect meat for the novice cook – “cooking with goat almost compels you to broaden your cooking repertoire”. Not only can it be swapped in for lamb in familiar recipes such as the aforementioned shepherd’s pie, but Whetlor’s book includes dishes from Spain, Somalia, Mexico and Milan: different goats for different folks, and something for everyone.
