Got goat?

We do.

It’s interesting how little respect goat gets. I don’t mean “goats,” as the happy providers of their delicious, delicious cheese- among the best purveyors are in Alberta (and Alberta makes damn fine cheese from all sorts of teets):

I mean goat. The meat. Goat. I’ll admit to having been skittish about eating the little guys for a long time- I got to avoid goat roti because Brian once told me that a sure mark of non-Trini wannabe was that they order goat to look all authentic, so I’d refuse it because, you know, I’m honourary Trini and have nothing to prove. But over the last year or so I’ve had some delectable goat, especially the loud, spicey goat chops from the Pakistani miracle workers at Calgary’s cheap and cheerful Mirchi (see “places I like” for location). I had not arrived at the place where I’d be comfortable cooking it. Until now.

Brian was looking forward to entertaining friends last week and like he always does he decided to spring a new recipe on them (I’ve never known anybody else who experiments on houseguests, but that’s part of what’s special about my special guy). He fell on one for “pappardelle with milk-roasted baby goat ragu,” culled from the July 2007 issue of Food and Wine. We couldn’t find “baby” goat so we got some chops (I think it was chops) from one of Calgary’s many halal butchers. Otherwise the recipe is straightforward if time-consuming (the sauce has to rest overnight, and it takes several hours to cook in the oven prior to that), and the end result was magnificent. Served on some really nice pappardelle (sort of a wider fettuccine), it is RICH RICH RICH, with a taste and texture I’d compare to beef short ribs. But definitely different. A little gamy, yes, but it was a huge hit.

Thing is, we made a tonne of this stuff, and I thought we’d just serve the rest with pasta. But I thought, why not tacos? Mexico has a strong goat-astic tradition and any meat is a tortilla’s friend- and this stuff is already shredded and seasoned. So I went for it, with the lovely corn tortillas from Tres Marias at the Calgary Farmers’ Market:

Which I heated up on a greased pan. I heated a portion of the goat ragu in the microwave, and lashed this liberally with lime and sambal oelek. I had to this because the meat is so cloyingly rich that it needs acid and spice to cut through it, especially (it seems) after a few days in the fridge. On top, I shredded a little cabbage and added some pickled onions that Brian made for a salad for the same dinner last week. End result, on paper towels to absorb oil from the greasy pan:

Very, very nice. What I wonder from this attempt is (1) why goat isn’t more popular, and (2) why there aren’t more taco places in Calgary. Even with a relative lack of Mexicans here, tacos are just dead easy. Real tacos, I mean, with real corn tortillas. They’re impossible to screw up as long as the meat’s good- and this meat was!