Different Meat Week - Goat Goodness

image David Blaine

Goat, chevon, mutton, billy, kids or whatever you call these animals, it's a very good meat to try when the cost of lamb might be out of your budget. Goats that a less than a year old, are known as "kids". So if you get a young goat to eat, you can tell your friends you eat kids!

I don't recall seeing these at the general supermarkets, but I know these can easily be found at most ethnic stores or commonly found in grocery stores that cater to the Spanish or Mexican buyers. Rather than waste time driving around looking for some goat meat, I just headed to my local Mexican carniceria meat market. Got some fresh goat! Woohoo!!! Although looking at goat steaks, it kind of reminds me of pork chops as you can see from the picture above.

The meat is a pretty lean meat and much leaner than chicken, and has a higher protein content than beef. I got mostly what I think was shoulder cuts. Not sure what I was really getting other than I asked the Mexican guy behind the counter, who didn't really speak English, if I can get some "chivo" which is Spanish for goat.

Goat can have a really gamey smell sometimes, and I'm not sure if that's because it's older meat, or the diet the goat has been eating, or if it's the section of the goat where the meat is cut from.

Gamey meat doesn't bother me, and I pan fried one of the pieces and just added a little salt and pepper. I wanted to get the flavor of the meat at it's most natural state and this was one of the quickest ways to do it. It was a little tough to chew, but not overly chewy. Sometimes, I thought I kind of look like the goats themselves as I was chewing the meat. The flavor is a strong flavor of gamey lamb and beef, and might be too strong for some people.

image alvxyz

The rest of the pieces of goat, I threw them into a stew. It was more like a tomato based stew. I'm sure there's a name for that type, but it escapes me at this time. I just know how to make it, and call it "stew". I decided to try it this way to see if I can get some of the strong flavors out and tenderize the meat. The meat was able to break apart with just a spoon, but the meat by this time wasn't anything that really stood out. I think the tomato acids and the herbs canceled most of the distinct flavors out, although slightly still detectable to tell you that you aren't eating beef.

I think goat is an excellent meat to try. I do recall now seeing this labeled as mutton in the major grocers, but they weren't very appealing looking and seemed dried out. Definitely a pass. If you have an ethnic store or Mexican grocer, I would try them first. You're most likely going to get fresher goat meat.

Different Meat Week - Ostrich Meat

image footosvanrobin

I thought the title states "ostrich meat", why is there a picture of a beef steak?

Ah-hah! So you think it's beef steak, but that is actually ostrich meat!

But isn't ostrich a bird, just a really big bird, so wouldn't the meat be white like chicken?

No, the meat is actually red meat just like beef. It's a very lean meat, so if you thought you had to be careful with bison meat to not overcook it and dry it out, you have to be a little more careful than bison when it comes to ostrich. It will get dry and tough if you don't pay attention to what you are doing.

Not only does it look like beef, it has a similar taste to beef. No special handling, worry of e. coli, or salmonella contamination like you would normally have with chicken. Just handle it like you would with any other beef cuts.

Unfortunately, as much as I would like to have had a fresh cut of ostrich steak to try out, the local stores only had frozen ostrich ground hamburger shaped patties. What a disappointment! Well, what can you do, except just buy it and see how it comes out.

Many years ago, I was passing through the Santa Maria, CA, area and they had a few ostrich farms along the way. Like any tourist, I stopped by the side of the road and tried to take a few pictures of them. I even tried to come up to one that was hanging along the fenced area near the road. Stupidly I tried to feed it one Cheetos, and held the bag in the other hand. I'm sure if the farmer saw me, he would've scolded me for trying to feed healthy birds junk food! I turn around and asked if my travel companions had their cameras out, and as soon as I turned around, the smart (smarter than me) ostrich just snatched the bag of Cheetos. It scared the shit out of me. Oh the laughter from my friends as I got outsmarted by the bird. In retrospect, we should've stopped by one of the farms and see if we could've dine on fresh ostrich, but unfortunately we had to jump back in the car and make it to Monterey before sundown.

So here we are with these ostrich patties. Disappointingly I just stare at them and think what I can do to bring out the natural flavors, and if I'm going to add anything, I'm going to enhance the flavor and not try to change or mask the flavor. It's kind of like when people drown their salads with salad dressing. They taste the dressing, but not the wonderfully delicious salad.

The only thing I can think of is to cook it in a little bit of olive oil in a pan and just add a little salt and pepper. I was thinking of maybe throwing them like they are on top of my BBQ grill and see if I can get that nice flame broiled taste. But because it's low in fat, I'm probably going to get a dry smokey taste. In the end, I just ended up cooking one as a patty and the other like ground beef balls.

I can't say I'm very impressed at this point, other than it's like any lean ground beef. It's not a bad thing if I'm eating for health reasons, but since I'm eating it for flavor, it's not much of anything different. It's just a lean meat. It's healthy. In fact, it's only second to bison meat in terms of calories, fat and protein content.

For a little more than 1 1/2 to 2 times the price of beef, it's not a bad deal if you are health conscious. It's readily available in most stores, including the major grocery chains, in frozen form.

I just wish I was able to get fresh ostrich steaks, if not for the taste, then at least for the novelty of trying it.