Wild Mushroom & Goat Stew
My parents have never had goat. My dad is particularly funny about new foods. He famously vowed never to eat yogurt because he thought all yogurt was made of goat's milk, which he--for some unknown reason--thought was gross. (He now loves yogurt and goat's cheese.) Serving goat meat was quite possibly going to be an epic failure. I decided not to tell them.
Earlier in the week I settled on a recipe from Auberge of the Flowering Hearth, the classic book by Roy Andries de Groot. It looked delicious. It was different than the other goat recipes I had recently prepared. A simple onion and mushroom stew, the preparation would not--other than the goat--be very challenging to the palate.
The recipe calls for about 3 lbs of boned goat meat. Inexplicably, I used the leg and the breast for this dish. Two cuts that really don't go together. One is thick and meaty and the other thin. I realized that I probably should have used the leg and the shanks. But the leg and breast are what I had thawed so they are what I used. I boned all the meat and saved the bones for stock (birria!). The leg is easy to bone and comes off in perfectly sized whole muscle pieces. The breast is much more difficult to bone out and I felt I wasn't getting all the meat. This breast really begs for grilling. Nevertheless, I was able to trim off about 6 or 8 sizable pieces.
My parents watched as I prepped the whole dish, chopping onions and shallots, washing mushrooms, searing the meat. Beautiful aromas began to fill the house. Never did they question what I might be making.
I threw a couple of side dishes together Grilled--actually, in this case broiled--Baby Artichokes with olive oil and lemon, and a quick off-the-cuff israeli cous-cous salad with leek, red pepper, asparagus, and lemon.
My brave guinea pigs ate every last bite. After they had finished, they both guessed it was goat. (They do read the blog, after all) My dad said, "The goat was....good." From experience, I interpret this as a thumb's up (I mean, he didn't gag, which he has been known to do). Both cuts worked well in the braise. Both were tender and and tasty. The kids asked for seconds. I would call that success. Next time I'll tell them what they're eating....or not.
The original French recipe calls for morels. As soon as morels are available I will make this again using them. You can use regular button mushrooms, or any wild mushrooms you find available at the market. This time I used hedgehogs and golden footed chanterelles.
Wild Mushroom & Goat Stew
--adapted from Auberge of the Flowering Hearth by Roy Andries de Groot
Serves 4-6
3 lbs boned meat of a young kid (if you use mature goat, you will need to increase the cooking time substantially)
Salt
Pepper
Flour for dusting the meat
5 TBS unsalted butter
One large yellow onion, chopped
4 shallots
1-1/2 cups dry white wine
1 lb mushrooms
parsley
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Cut meat into large-ish pieces (about 1/4 lb. each). Season the meat with salt and pepper and dust with flour. Melt butter in a heavy pot or dutch oven. Over med-high heat, brown the meat in batches being careful not to crowd the pieces. Set browned meat aside.
Turn the heat down to medium and add the onions and shallots to the pot. Sauté, scraping up the brown bits at the bottom of the pan, for about 5 minutes. Add the meat back to the pan and cook another 5-10 minutes. Add wine and bring to a boil. Cover the pot and put it in the 350F oven for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, bring the stew back to the stovetop and add the clean mushrooms cooking, uncovered, at a lively simmer for 10-20 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, top with fresh parsley and serve.
