Getting my goat at Palmerston Palace

Roll up, roll up, get your hairy rancid goat here! The perfect opportunity to catch up on late night infomercials, you'll be up all night with this little beauty! Reaquaint yourself intimately with your toilet bowl! Amaze your friends with shocking weightloss! Ever wanted to go vegetarian but just couldn't stop eating meat? This slimey little number will send you straight to the soy aisle!

I had some friends around for dinner last night, and was quite excited at the prospect of cooking goat for the first time. I've been meaning to get my hands on some nice spring milk-fed capretto from my local butcher for a little while now, but ended up buying a goat leg in Geraldton when I was there recently as it was on special, and quite a good price. The leg was frozen, so I took it out to defrost in the fridge the other day in preparation for last night's dinner. When I got it out to marinate yesterday morning, I was ill prepared for the horror that was to meet me. The vacuum seal wasn't sealed, so the blood had oozed out into the bag I had luckily placed it in. Not such a big deal, just a bit gross to deal with. I thought I detected a strange odour, but opened up the meat anyway and instantly wished I hadn't as my nose was assaulted with rancid fumes. Being unfamiliar with goat meat I thought for a second that perhaps this was just how raw goat smells, but on closer inspection the meat also had a lovely slimey sheen to it, and just to top things off it also had clumps of hair on it. Mmmmmmmmmmmm slimey hairy rancid goat.

Into the bin the slimey hairiness went, and to the internet I turned to try and somehow find a butcher than not only stocked goat, but was open on Sundays. A seemingly impossible task, and I expected that I would have to use lamb instead, but then I came across a stall called Poacher's Pantry at the Malaga Market so off I went to Malaga on a goat mission. Happily, when I made my way successfully through the gauntlet of bogans to Poacher's Pantry, I found 2 kilos of diced goat leg sitting next to the ostrich sausages. Sadly, I also discovered that this newfound source of interesting meats is soon to close down, but the upside was that the goat was 20% off. I wish I'd bought the ostrich snags too, who knows when an opportunity for cut price ostrich sausages will present itself again?

Home I rushed, now behind the eight ball in terms of dinner prep (although I possibly may have stopped off for some celebratory duck spring rolls at Phi Yen on the way home), but rejoicing in the fact that goat was still on the menu. This was particularly worth celebrating as I had been dorky enough to actually print off the menu.


The menu for the evening began with some lamb koftas that were left over from Mum's birthday party and had been patiently waiting in the freezer (uncooked) for a special occasion, such as to celebrate the sourcing of non-hairy goat. As with at the party, I served them with some raita, and couldn't resist a little mint garnish. Unfortunately I don't have a menu for the koftas as they were made by my sister who used a few different taste.com.au kofta recipes to come up with the final product, but I can share the raita recipe I used.

Raita

Ingredients
1/2 cup low fat natural yoghurt
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 Tb mint leaves, chopped
1/2 lebanese cucumber, seeded and finely chopped or grated

Method
Combine all ingredients, stirring well. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Lamb kofta and raita

I was lucky enough to receive a sample of Blu Gourmet Pearl Couscous from Liz at Haystac some time ago, and had been planning to serve it with goat reminiscent of the tasty (yet terribly bony and stingy on the meat) goat tagine with Israeli couscous dish I had at Bella Vista a few months back. The couscous came with some tasty sounding recipes, by Gabriel Gaté no less (oui oui!), but given that I would be using the couscous as a bed for the saucy goat dish I decided to keep the ingredients to a minimum and cook it with the wild porcini mushrooms that Evelyne sent me in her Montreal foodie exchange package.

I really liked the taste of this goat dish, but next time I would cut the root vegetables into smaller pieces (which I ended up doing this time). The meat was also much better after being in the cooker for four hours, so I'd cook it for at least that long as well. The sauce was also not quite as thick as I would have preferred, which I think would have worked better with the pearl couscous as opposed to something better able to sop up a runnier sauce (like normal couscous or mashed potato), but I did end up adding extra stock to the goat as I was using more meat than the original recipe so I would not do this next time.The couscous though was really great, and I loved the flavour and colour that the wild mushrooms added! I really like the texture of pearl couscous, and will certainly be buying it to try some of Monsieur Gaté's recipes, or coming up with my own.

Slow Cooked Capretto
Slightly adapted from the Goat Tagine recipe by Anna Gare from Best in Australia

Ingredients
Goat
2 kg diced goat leg meat (or whatever cut you like)
400 g sweet potato, cut into large chunks
2 medium parsnips cut into 3 or 4
2 medium carrots cut in half
10 shallots, peeled
5 Roma tomatoes chopped into quarters
Rind of a lemon and half an orange
2 Bay leaves
1 cassia bark (use a cinnamon quill if you can't get this)
600 ml chicken stock
2 cans chick peas washed and drained

Spice Rub
3 tsp Smoked Paprika pimento
½ tsp Allspice
1½ tsp coriander seeds ground
3 cardamom pods ground and husks removed
3 Cloves ground
1 tsp sea salt
3 Cloves Garlic finely chopped
1 Chilli seeds removed and finely chopped
10 g Ginger finely chopped
2 Tb Olive Oil

Garnish
Freshly chopped coriander or parsley
Lemon rind

Goat marinating, sauteing the vegies, browning the meat, all hanging out in the slow cooker

Method
1. Mix all spice ingredients together and rub over goat. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in fridge, allowing to marinate for 2 hours.
2. Add a little oil to heavy based pot or a large tagine & lightly sauté onions, potatoes, carrots & parsnip - put aside.
3. Lightly brown marinated goat, then remove.
4. Place sautéed veg back in pot or tagine or slow cooker & put meat & rest of ingredients on top (except chickpeas).
5. Pour over stock, cover with lid and cook on low heat in oven or stove top for pot/tagine, or in slow cooker on high for 3 hrs, stirring once or twice and adding drained chick peas in last ½ hr of cooking time.
6. Sprinkle garnish over top and serve to table in tagine if that's what you're using, or in a nice big attractive dish, or plate it up individually with something like the following side dish...

Slow cooked goat leg with wild porcini pearl couscous

Wild Porcini Pearl Couscous

Ingredients
25 g dried wild porcini mushrooms
1 1/2 cups pearl couscous
2 cups warm water
1 tsp olive oil

Method
1. Place the mushrooms in a bowl and cover with the warm water, leaving them to soak for 30 minutes to an hour, or until they have softened and the water has turned into a beautiful mushroomy stock.
(I learnt from this recent post that you may then want to squeeze the excess water from the mushrooms and rinse them in several changes of fresh water to get rid of any grit or sand. When saving the mushroom soaking water for later use, you may also want to strain it through a cloth or paper towel lined sieve to catch any grit in the water.)
2. Heat the olive oil in a medium sized saucepan and heat over medium heat until hot. Add the couscous to the pan and sauté until lightly toasted, around a minute or so.
3. Add the mushrooms and their stock to the pan, stir it all together and bring to the boil.
4. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes or until the water is absorbed.
5. Fluff couscous with a fork to separate the pearls, then taste and season if if necessary.
6. Serve with something delicious, such as slow cooked capretto!

Dried mushrooms, and their delicious reincarnation

Now, all these dishes may well be very tasty and interesting, but they were soon forgotten when it was time for dessert. If you have never made your own sticky date pudding, or had failures in the past, YOU MUST MAKE THIS DISH. I can still taste it now (she says, wiping the crumbs off her face from eating leftovers for afternoon tea).

The only downside to making this dish is having the voices of Gary, George and Matt continually talking in your head while you make it, as it's a MasterChef recipe. I was particularly channelling Matt when I was making the caramel for the almond praline. I resisted the urge to fashion a fetching cravat out of paper towel.


Sticky Date Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce
From MasterChef

Ingredients
Pudding
180g dates, pitted and roughly chopped
1¼ cups (310ml) water
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¾ cup (165g) firmly packed brown sugar
60g butter, softened chopped
2 eggs
1 cup (150g) self-raising flour

Almond praline
½ cup (110g) caster sugar
¼ cup (35g) slivered almonds

Butterscotch sauce
50g butter
1 cup (220g) brown sugar
1 cup (250ml) cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180˚C (160˚C fan-forced). Lightly grease eight (½ cup capacity) metal dariole moulds.
2. Place dates and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil over a high heat. Remove from the heat. Add bicarbonate of soda, stir until dates start to break down, set aside to cool, stirring occasionally.
3. Beat butter and sugar in a bowl using a hand beater, gradually add eggs one at a time, beat until light and fluffy.
4. Add date mixture, stir to combine. Carefully fold through sifted flour, divide mixture evenly between the eight moulds, until 2/3 full. (I really was not at all careful in my manner of folding through the sifted flour. In fact, I was pretty rough as it was quite lumpy with flour at first)
5. Place moulds in a baking tray, carefully pour water in tray until it comes up 1/3 of the side of the moulds. Bake in oven for 40 minutes or until golden and skewer comes out clean.
6. Meanwhile, for the almond praline, combine sugar and 2 tablespoons water in a saucepan over medium heat and cook caramel without stirring, swirling pan, until deep golden. Scatter almonds onto a baking paper-lined oven tray, pour over caramel and cool until set. Break praline into pieces.
7. For the butterscotch sauce, combine butter, sugar, cream and vanilla in small saucepan over low heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Bring sauce to the boil, reduce heat and cook for 5-6 minutes or until sauce thickens slightly.
8. To serve, invert the hot pudding onto a serving plate, top with butterscotch sauce and shards of praline. (and some ice cream... go on)


I'm off to Bali on Wednesday for a lot of relaxing and eating and drinking and massages and swimming and certainly no sunburning, no no, with my fabulous soon-to-be-married bestie C, so I shall see you all when I return (not sunburnt)!

Oh I can't help myself... just one more gratuitous pudding shot...

Oxford St Market + Generous Friend = Tasty Dinner

The Oxford St Market in Leederville has been in existence for a few months now, and I finally got around to checking it out on Sunday with my friend C. After arriving, finding parks and beginning our perusal, we both realised that we'd spent all our cash at the pub the previous night and so had to immediately turn around and leave to address this situation. I then discovered that my usual Westpac ATM on Oxford St has apparently been removed, and no amount of standing around looking confused seemed to change this fact so I had to pay a fee to get my money out by using an ANZ ATM. All of this before breakfast too, it was enough to give a girl a headache. If perhaps she didn't already have one for reasons mysterious and unknown.

Rob's Meats

The Oxford St Market is quite small, but has a few good stalls. First up was Rob's Meats, enticing us with their advertised "Sexy Italian sausages". They sell a range of meats and seafoods, and also were selling sausages in a bun! We declined the sausages in a bun, but C bought some of the award winning Lamb & Rosemary sausages. She also wanted a lamb roast but they had sold out. Boo.

Guinea Grove Farm

Next on our journey was the Guinea Grove Farm stall, selling four types of olive oils. Luckily they had them out for tasting with bread, and we made our way through all four. The lemon pressed olive oil was particularly delicious, and would go perfectly with some lightly grilled asparagus or as a simple salad dressing. I wanted to buy some, but as they offer a good discount if you bring your own container I will be going back at a later stage to take advantage of this offer. They also had guinea fowl eggs to sell, which the nice woman running the stall explained is due to them having far too many to eat themselves. They have guinea fowl in amongst the olive trees to keep down pests, and they leave little eggy presents in their wake.

from the pot

We lingered at the 'from the pot' stall for some time, trying out many of their jams, preserves, chutneys, pickles and spice mixes. Both of us had to buy the Fig & Ginger Preserve after trying it.. the combination worked beautifully and it was both chunky and not too sweet. I also got the aubergine pickle, which has a good kick to it, and some Chilli Garlic & Herb rub.

A cupcake seller

There was a woman selling cupcakes, which looked mildly enticing, but I was in no state to eat cupcakes. I did notice however that one of the types of cupcakes was the exact image of the Crabapple Bakery Orange & Poppyseed cupcakes. Controversial!

Juice and cheese sellers

Crepe makers

Can you see the empty board at the crepe makers stand? That was where they were advertising their savoury crepes before we realised we had no money. When we returned... they had sold out! Disaster! I was unable to face a sweet breakfast so we ended up going down into the heart of Leederville and having breakfast at Sayers. A fine breakfast. I really should get around to reviewing Sayers.

Other stalls at the Oxford St Market included a florist, organic skin products, organic fruit & veges and a coffee maker. Please forgive my somewhat half-arsed review of the markets, I was not in my most energetic state of mind. I must've eaten a dodgy prawn the previous night.

Err.. not the best segue but now onto tonight's dinner!

I was lucky enough to be visited by a good friend who I had not seen for some time this morning, and she came bearing gifts! From her garden! Edible gifts! I scored a huge bunch of rhubarb, a big fennel bulb, a bag of artichokes and a bag of broad beans. Woo!

My housemate had a few lamb steaks in the fridge that needed eating, so I decided to make a warm salad with some of my newfound produce, the spice rub I'd bought at the markets, and the lamb.


Artichoke, beetroot and bean salad with spiced lamb
Adapted from a taste.com.au recipe

Serves 2 very hungry post-gym girls

Ingredients
3 small lamb steaks
Spice rub of your choice
3 small or two larger beetroot, washed and stalks removed
4 artichokes
Juice of one lemon
250 g shelled broad beans
180 g green beans, topped & tailed and chopped up a little if they're big
30 mL olive oil
1 Tb fresh lemon juice
0.5 Tb tahini
1 garlic clove, crushed
Salt & black pepper
100g feta

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Wrap the beetroot in foil and roast in the oven until tender (I did mine for around 1.5 hours).
3. Allow to cool slightly then rub off the skins and set aside.
4. Peel off the first couple of layers of leaves from the artichokes, and trim the stems. Cut each one in half and remove the hairy choke (tee hee! Hairy choke!) using a teaspoon. Place the halves in a large bowl filled with water and the juice of the lemon.
5. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil, and then add the broad beans and green beans, cooking until tender (around 5 minutes). Remove from water and refresh under cold water. Drain very well and set aside.
6. Remove the artichokes from the lemony water and cook in the salted boiling water until tender (when you stick a skewer in the stem), around 10 minutes. Remove from the water and refresh until cold water. Drain very well and set aside.
7. Combine the olive oil, Tb lemon juice, tahini and garlic in a bowl. Mix well and taste, adding more lemon juice if necessary and also salt and pepper.
8. Cut the beetroot into wedges.
9. Serve the salad with the artichokes, beetroot and beans on your plates. Crumble the feta over the top.

Undressed salad

10. Heat your griddle or frying pan until quite hot, and while it is heating rub the lamb with your spice rub (you can also do this earlier).

Lamb all dressed up and ready for a hot night out

11. Oil up your pan and cook the lamb until done to your liking. Remove from heat and allow to rest for a little before slicing up.
12. Dress the salad with the tahini dressing, and place the lamb on top.
Enjoy!

Lamb Stroganovski

Although I admit I'm somewhat bummed at having yet another cold, it's not all bad news as it lead to last night's meal in a couple of ways. Firstly, as I alluded to in my previous post, I've been watching a bit of Bizarre Foods lately, and saw the St Petersburg episode the other day. Apart from teaching me to never, ever consider eating pickled lamprey (I think he described it as "horrifying", which is alarming coming from a man who loves to get stuck into a nice plate of mystery meat or tuna sperm) it also inspired me to make a stroganoff sometime soon. Of course, the traditional dish is a beef stroganoff, but I tweaked the recipe to make it with lamb instead. I will certainly not be following in the footsteps of my Dad, who when in Russia a couple of years ago, accidentally ordered Liver Stroganoff.

This particular recipe comes from the much loved Australian Women's Weekly Cooking Class Cookbook. My Mum has had this cookbook for as long as I can remember, and although I couldn't find a year of publication, the recommended price is $3.98 which gives a hint to its age. This is my go-to cookbook for many traditional recipes, being particularly well used when I went through my pancakes-for-dessert-every-night stage when I was younger, and it also tells you things like how to joint a chicken, fillet a fish and make your own mixed peel.

My beloved personal copy of The Australian Women's Weekly Cooking Class Cookbook

It was a very happy day when my parents returned from a holiday in Queensland a few years ago with, amongst the usual present haul of t-shirts and fridge magnets, a very special present for me - my very own copy of the cookbook. I was ecstatic. My Dad actually spied it in a second hand stall, and funnily enough they were asking $4 for it - only 2 cents dearer than the original $3.98 asking price. I no longer had to call up my Mum to ask her to read out a recipe to me over the phone, or scan and email me a copy, although as I discovered yesterday I do still need to call her to double check all her little amendments to the recipes that she's tweaked over the years.

The second reason that this meal was assisted by my cold was the fact that in my current state I decided to give Coles Online a try. The thought of getting out of my pyjamas and facing a supermarket just seemed impossible, and although my housemate was happy to go do my bidding, I thought it was a good opportunity to test the Coles Online waters. Plus, I had quite a few things, some quite particular, that I wanted to stock up on, and didn't want to hand my housemate an essay for a shopping list.

How did I get in this aisle?

So, I spent some time on Wednesday logging on and virtually shopping. In some aspects it was a little disappointing, as the choice is much more limited than in a real Coles supermarket so only particular varieties or brands of some items are offered, and some things just aren't available at all (no fresh rhubarb! Waah!). It seems to be pretty good for staples though, and I admit that I took great delight in ordering particularly heavy things. No multiple trips with piles of bags hanging off each arm, only to drop my keys when trying to get in my front door, hooray!

So, I eagerly awaited my grocery delivery yesterday afternoon during my selected delivery window, hoping that my strawberries would not be mouldy and my tinned soup would not be on top of my eggs. Well, my delivery window that I selected was 4pm-6pm, and the delivery arrived at exactly 6pm. The delivery man was very friendly, and also seemed to be much more intelligent than the friends of my neighbours, as he managed to figure out which door bell belongs to my apartment.

Coles have some legal thing where they will not enter your residence to put your shopping down for you, so we played a little game of pass the bag as he handed me bags and I placed them down on my loungeroom floor. I then signed his form and got opening! The first thing I noticed was that the bag containing my chocolate ice creams actually smelled like chocolate. Not a good sign. Opening up one of the boxes, I discovered that they had gone very soft, which I made a note of on my little order slip and raced them into the freezer. I also noticed that a couple of the items I was unfamiliar with when purchasing were quite different to the picture on the website, so I made a couple of mistakes by buying things thinking they were something else.

I guess it could have been worse ("Hot with a Chance of a Late Storm" by The Glue Society, at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, 2006 (Colectiva 2006))

When you select your items, you can say whether or not you'll accept a substitution if that item is not available, and I was somewhat unhappy to see that my "extra trim stir fry lamb" that was on sale at $15/kilo had been substituted with normal stir fry lamb at $19/kilo. Better than no lamb at all, though. Oh and finally, my matches were nowhere to be found! It's a good thing I wasn't desperate to light a birthday cake last night.

I just got off the phone with the customer service line for Coles Online, and after speaking to a very friendly chap I now have a credit on my account for the ice creams and the matches. Apparently they have an issue with ice creams melting a little when they are waiting for the vans at the warehouse, and they are going to address it.

So, I think that Coles Online is definitely worth using if you can't get yourself to the supermarket, but it seems a good idea to stick to items that you're familiar with (in case the picture is misleading) and order easily meltable items with caution. At least the customer service seems top notch, and I have some free refrozen oddly shaped ice creams for my trouble.

Lamb Stroganoff with fettuccine and little white and green trees

Now, onto last night's dinner! My Mum has been using her own version of the Women's Weekly Beef Stroganoff recipe for years and years, and it is often requested at bring-a-dish family dos. I've taken her version of the recipe and tweaked it some more to make it a lamb stroganoff instead, and I guess there are a number of other meats you could also use. Just not lamprey.

Lamb Stroganoff
Adapted from my Mum's version of The Australian Women's Weekly Cooking Class Cookbook beef stroganoff recipe

Ingredients
750 g trim lamb, cut into strips across the grain
Butter/olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
600 g button mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup stock (I used chicken, I wished for homemade lamb stock!)
250 g (half a tin) condensed tomato soup
300 mL light sour cream
1 Tb cornflour

Method
1. In a hot pan**, sear the meat very quickly, in batches, using butter or olive oil. Set aside.
2. Add more butter/oil to pan and add the onion, sautéing until lightly brown. Add the mushrooms and more butter, gently sautéing until they are tender.

It will look like a ridiculous amount of mushrooms, but they reduce down a lot.

3. Return the meat to the pan, also adding the stock/water and tomato soup, stirring until combined. Season. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered for 5 minutes.
4. Mix the sour cream and cornflour together in a bowl, stirring until well combined. Gradually add this mixture to the pot, stirring until meat mixture boils and thickens. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes.

Serve with pasta and vegetables. I chose to serve with fettuccine, cauliflower and brocolli.

This version of the recipe is admittedly lacking in the real meaty taste of the beef version, as that uses beef and beef stock. So, if you're a beef lover I'd recommend you go that route instead. I really think this recipe could be improved with the use of some lamb stock instead of chicken, to bring out a more lamby taste. Having said this however, it is still a very tasty dish and my housemate happily took leftovers off to work with her today.

Oh and speaking of leftovers - the original recipe states that it serves four people. Well, we both managed to get a good feed out of it last night, and also made up five extra meals for the fridge/freezer with the leftovers. So, I'd say it serves more like six people.

** Just like my Mum, I always make dishes like this using my Breville "Country Kitchen" cast iron electric frying pan. This thing makes EVERYTHING taste better, and is totally worth the grunting effort required to lug it out of the cupboard. I just tried to find a link to it on the Breville website though, and it seems to not be made anymore? Good god, I had better not break mine.