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Cooperative extension focuses on lamb, goat
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Published: August 19, 2009
Updated: 08/18/2009 08:45 pm
Eaten any good goat lately?
Well, I have.
I was invited last Friday to the Guilford County Agricultural Center to help judge a cook-off featuring goat and lamb meat.
The cook-off was part of the third N.C. Goat and Sheep Producers Roundup, held by the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service.
The two-day conference brought together about 100 current and prospective goat and lamb producers. They attended seminars on everything from trimming hooves, marketing meat and building goat-proof fences.
At lunch, they learned a little bit about the culinary possibilities of goat and lamb.
"Some of these producers have never tasted their own meat," said Martha Mobley, an extension agent in Franklin County and organizer of the conference.
Professional cook-off
Mobley sent out letters to professional chefs in the state who enjoy working with local foods. She asked them if they would be willing to prepare one goat dish and one lamb dish for the cook-off.
Five responded. The Stocked Pot cooking school represented Winston-Salem with a lamb biryani and a Grecian goat stew with olives and artichokes.
Chatham Marketplace in Pittsboro prepared drunken goat burritos and roast leg of lamb with orange-rosemary salad.
Jujube restaurant in Chapel Hill brought lamb over polenta, goat kabobs with chile arbol sauce and goat pozole. The latter is a recipe from a new restaurant called Don Perros that Jujube's owners are opening in Durham.
Spanky's Restaurant in Chapel Hill made lamb meatballs in mushroom espagnole sauce, and chimichurri-braised goat -- kind of like an Argentinean goat version of pulled pork -- with jicama slaw.
A Taste of the Caribbean from Greensboro had a spread of seven dishes. The four meat dishes included lamb callaloo, or lamb with braised greens; goat curry, lamb curry and brown goat stew with a fiery Scotch-bonnet chile sauce. All of this was accompanied by rice and beans, white rice and plantains.
Considering the cost
The other judges were Andrea Weigl, a food writer with the News & Observer in Raleigh, and Susan Proctor, a goat producer in Hickory.
At first, I was a bit surprised that no one used the nicest cuts of lamb. A rack of lamb is hard to beat for flavor, tenderness and juiciness. Then I realized that these restaurants had essentially agreed to cater lunch for 100 people. The cost of such nice cuts quickly adds up.
I was not surprised that the goat dishes were uniformly braised or stewed for long periods of time. Most cuts of goat must be cooked slowly over a low temperature, preferably in a fair amount of liquid, to be moist and tender. Marinating is also recommended.
When done right, braised or stewed goat can be delicious. It has a more assertive flavor than lamb. And when cubed, goat tends to be moister inside -- probably because of a more even distribution of fat.
After tasting our way through all of the dishes, we came up with four winners. Though our tasting was blind, the top goat and lamb dishes both came from the same restaurant -- Chatham Marketplace. I loved the flavor of the drunken goat burrito, which has cumin-seasoned meat with red onion, cilantro and queso fresco (fresh Mexican cheese). The roast leg of lamb was delicious and tender and went great with the creative salad. This had a bit of orange-rosemary marmalade with arugula, shaved fennel and vinaigrette of roasted and pureed Sungold tomatoes.
Second place in the goat category went to Jujube's goat pozole, a deeply flavored stew with hominy. The chile-flavored broth reminded me a bit of menudo, a wonderful Mexican tripe stew.
Second place in the lamb category went to The Stocked Pot for its lamb biryani -- essentially a curried rice pilaf, well-seasoned with garam masala and other Indian flavors.
One more bit of news: I was surprised to learn that the state is raising a whole lot more goat than lamb these days.
Jean-Marie Luginbuhl, an extension agent in the Raleigh area, put the goat-breeding stock at a conservative 85,000 head.
Barbara Pugh, the president of the N.C. Sheep Producers Association, estimates the lamb-breeding stock at 12,000.
Several producers mentioned the increase in the state's Hispanic population, whose cooking traditions often include goat.
For the top two recipes, go to www.journalnow.com.
■ Michael Hastings, the Journal's Food editor, can be contacted by phone at 727-7394, e-mail at mhastings@wsjournal.com, or mail at c/o Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. His most recent columns can be read on our Web site at www.journalnow.com.
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