Get On your Goat

One of the most surprising reactions our diners have is to their first taste of goat and we are often asked where to source it.

Thompson Meats at the Victoria Market have taken on the role that the now retired market legend Alf Paulet had in supplying great offal, they also sell very fine goat meat grown in Gippsland in all the convenient cuts.

Many of you will be very familiar with the sweet taste and tender texture of young goat meat. Just as many of you will be a little confused and perhaps frightened by the unjust reputation that goat meat has, as having an overtly strong flavour and aroma. This is a myth.
Young goat, sometimes called kid or capretto is as tender as young spring lamb with a subtle light aroma that does not intensify during slow cooking. Because goat is leaner than lamb sometimes a little pork fat, bacon or duck fat can help to bring the cooking to a moist conclusion. Most Halal butchers will also have goat meat as it is very popular amongst the Middle Eastern and Asian communities and sold as “mutton”. This can be confusing but Halal goat meat is usually a little older than Kid or Capretto which is under 12 kilo per carcase, more like its two-tooth equivalent in lamb. The older carcass is sometimes also called Chevon . I like them both very much and the flavour of goat meat marries well with both European and Asian herbs and spices. Once we had a wine and food society function with lots of guessing games going on and some of the local farmers were very surprised that goat could taste so good and insisted that it was milk fed lamb.
Vietnamese butchers also stock young goat with the singed skin on.

They like to cook it with the skin on slowly till it attains a gelatinous texture and use it in various traditional ways. Morocco, Italy, Spain all have a rich tradition of cooking with goat. Australia is the largest exporter of goat meat in the world.

The cartoon is of course from Michael Leunig from Goatperson And Other Tales

Penguin 1999