Goat

Goat meat has been a favourite for thousands of years – and for good reason: it’s a hardy animal, plentiful, and very tasty. It’s still the go-to meat in many small, dusty rural South African villages (as it is in Asia, the Middle East and South America), where it roams freely, but for us gentrified city folk, it has somehow fallen off the radar. This is partly because of the misperception that goat meat is as tough as hell and, at best, only worthy of a curry. Sourcing the appropriate breed and right age are important, though – goat is, in fact, delicious, versatile and, if cooked as a kid (a young animal), very tender. As a result, goat meat is becoming more popular with those in the know, and is showing up on the menus of Michelin-starred international restaurants, as premium dishes. A goat’s diet, like that of lamb and mutton, plays out in the meat’s flavour. Like lamb, cook a kid and you’ll find that its meat might be slightly coarser grained, but no less tender. Goat is classified exactly the same way as lamb. In other words, according to how many teeth it has. An older animal would be the equivalent of mutton. Like mutton, the older the animal gets, the tougher the meat becomes, so adult goat is indeed best for stewing, long braises and curries.