The Essential Ingredient
For food lovers and cooking enthusiasts alike, working with unfamiliar or lesser-used ingredients is the thrilling base of invention. When it comes to goat and kid meat, which has long been a staple of many international cuisines, goat is an Australian food revolution waiting to happen.
Australians love to eat meat. Although vegetarianism and veganism are as popular here as they are overseas (around 4% for the former), meat is held by most as an essential part of their diet, and forms a base around which to build most meals.
According to the Victorian Department of Primary Industry, Australian’s eat on average 36.7kgs beef/veal, 38kgs poultry, 22kgs pork and 13kgs lamb every year.
And yet goat, of which Australia is the world’s largest exporter, barely averages 1kg per capita.
That looks likely to change, however.
Goat/kid is popular around the world, featuring in cuisines as geographically and culturally broad as Egyptian, Italian, Indian, Thai and Iranian.
Goat and kid meat can be cooked many ways, its flavour said to be a fusion of lamb and venison. Due to its low fat content however, it is in slow-cooked dishes that goat meat is most commonly served.
Tagines, biryanis, curries and stews are natural fits when it comes to cooking goat, the onions and peppers of a Capra alla Neretese or the rice, cumin and cardamom of a Thai Biryani matching perfectly the goat’s flavour and texture.
Depending on the cut of goat or kid, the meat can be used to replace mutton, lamb, venison and veal in most recipes, with often-remarkable results.
In a time when our search for new culinary adventures is stretching further than ever, why not try a meat Australia is becoming internationally recognised for producing?
It may not be at your supermarket yet, but visit any large market or butcher and they’ll steer you in the right direction.
The Essential Ingredient stocks a wide variety of tagines and slow-cookers, as well as the highest quality spices and other imported ingredients, to give you the most authentic (and delicious) results when cooking with goat.
Or, find a new goat recipe in our broad range of cookbooks.
Contact your nearest Essential Ingredient store now to learn more.
Tell us what you think