Curry goat

As tradition built it

Curry goat

Serves 6. About 1 hour 30 minutes, plus 2 hours' marinating.

Ingredients

The goat

• 1.35kg goat meat, in bite size pieces
• 2 tbsp white vinegar, with water, for washing
• 1 tbsp curry powder
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 stalks escallion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tsp ginger, chopped
• 2 tsp thyme, chopped
• ½ Scotch bonnet, chopped
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp salt

The pot

• 60ml vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp curry powder
• 960ml boiling water
• 1 large potato, diced
• 1 medium carrot, sliced
• 4 pimento berries, crushed

Method

1. Trim the meat, cut it into bite size pieces and wash it in water with the vinegar.
2. Rub in a tablespoon of the curry powder, the onion, escallion, garlic, ginger, thyme, Scotch bonnet, pepper and salt. Cover and leave it 2 hours.
3. Heat the oil in a heavy pan over a medium heat and add the second tablespoon of curry powder. Add the meat and let it sear.
4. Turn the meat, pour in the boiling water, cover, and simmer about 1 hour 20 minutes, until tender.
5. Add the potato and cook 5 minutes.
6. Fold in the carrot and the crushed pimento and cook 5 minutes more.
7. Serve with plain rice, salad and mango chutney.

Notes

No named Jamaican institutional source gives this exact timing, and it should be read as representative technique rather than one canonical recipe.

Jamaican curry powder differs from Indian masala mainly through a heavier hand with turmeric; the major commercial brand, Betapac, blends turmeric with pimento, fenugreek, star anise and coriander.

The recipe is Grace Foods', Jamaica's own food company. Taneisha Morris marinates hers overnight with all the curry in it, lets the goat sweat out its own liquid in a covered pot before adding water a little at a time, and cooks it 1 to 1½ hours or more.

What a modern chef changes

Sous vide shoulder, spices toasted fresh

Rung 05

Method

1. Cook the goat shoulder sous vide at a low, held temperature for several hours before finishing, giving a texture the stovetop's simmer-and-hope method cannot guarantee.
2. Reduce the reserved braising aromatics separately into a concentrated sauce, finished with the meat only at the point of serving rather than simmered through with everything else until it turns stringy.
3. Toast and grind the curry spices fresh in the spice grinder, rather than reaching for pre-mixed Betapac alone, though Betapac remains the honest sourcing fallback for a reader without the full spice cupboard.