The lowdown on goat meat

[Naturaldane]

I have to admit, I have never tried it, though I have plans on raising meat goats preferably for my own consumption.
Can some one discribe the taste, texture and your favorite way to prepair it please?
The people Im getting my foundation goats from are suposed to slaughter one soon, but the other meat thread made me a bit impatient as yall make it sound soo good.

[Jcran]

Good, yummy, delish! I personally think that it is similar to lamb but without the lanolin-y taste that lamb can get. My hubby thinks that he cannot tell the difference between goat and cow but I sure can! I've had a friend compare it to mild venison. I love love love it!

[Naturaldane]

I have never had lamb but have had deer. Ive heard it can be really tough is that just with anything other than weanlings

[MisFitFarm]

It is a very lean meat, so cook it slowly. We LOVE goat burgers, which is the ony way we have ever had it. It kind of reminds me of turkey burgers texture wise.

[Cygnet]

I'm personally not very fond of it, it reminds me a lot of mutton and I don't much care for mutton. However, I've only ever had "old culled doe." Maybe young goat is different.

[Backfourty,MI.]

My DH & I don't think it tastes anything like Mutton or venison & we both deer hunt & love venison. We love the goat(chevon)meat. I cook it any way that you would cook beef. We actually love the roasts in the slow cooker with what ever herbs or spices you like, also the ribs with BBQ sauce, ground & also ground made into breakfast sausage is wonderful too!

[Goat Servant]

My description would be somewhere btween venison & chicken, at least texture wise. Not gamey at all. It is rather dry.
Since it has hardly any fat in the meat it it can be tough unless its cooked long & low. Personally Ive never had success with high heat.

One of my favorite ways is put in dutch oven, cover with your favorite BBQ sauce and garlic and onions, add enough cola to make the sauce not so thick and throw him in the oven at 300 for 2 hrs. Works every time.
And don't get me started on coconut milk!

[Naturaldane]

Geeze, may wind up getting one sooner than I had planned, ill have to find some one to shoot it though, I can do everything else but havnt toughend up to that point just yet.\

Id love to hear about coconut milk as we use it in a few things, do you just crock pot it how do you go about that?

[goatsareus]

Originally Posted by Backfourty,MI.

My DH & I don't think it tastes anything like Mutton or venison & we both deer hunt & love venison. We love the goat(chevon)meat. I cook it any way that you would cook beef. We actually love the roasts in the slow cooker with what ever herbs or spices you like, also the ribs with BBQ sauce, ground & also ground made into breakfast sausage is wonderful too!

I agree with these statements. Dh and I have been doing our own butchering for over 30 years and we love the meat. Chevon tastes nothing like mutton or venison and has no hint of gaminess. It is very lean so care must be taken when cooking it. Yesterday I cooked up 4 pounds of ground chevon; 1 1/2 pounds in a meatloaf and 2 1/2 pounds in a chili. I add some olive oil to the mix when making meatloaf and goat burgers. For the chili, I browned the meat in bacon fat.

[Naturaldane]

Ok, Im going to go look at some meat goats for sale this weekend, whats a average price and is weanlings/ yearlings better to get as with most animals?

[Loda Farm]

We get ours processed, since we have not figured out how to do that ourselves. The hamburger we do just like beef hamburger...Goat makes AWESOME tacos. LOL I have also cut up meat for Kabobs. We marinate it over night and grill it. It tasted great, but was a little tough. Next time, I am going to marinate it, then precook it in a crock pot or oven, and then grill it for just a short time. Just sent in a goat, so can't wait for it to come back. *yummy* We also get pepperoni type sticks done for my kids to snack on, and jerky, This last goat we did, we are getting roasts, burger and kabob meat done. The only thing I found we did not care for was chops, and only because they were so small. The taste was fine, just really small.
Laura

[Ezrandi]

buy some at the local meat markets ifyou can find it. Thats the best way to tell. My first taste was from someone on the list.
And forthat Im very thankful!

[Naturaldane]

Originally Posted by Ezrandi

buy some at the local meat markets ifyou can find it. Thats the best way to tell. My first taste was from someone on the list.
And forthat Im very thankful!

I have yet to find it in any of the stores here, but we are just south west of Athens in a very small town. I dont even know where to start to look for some one to process the goat, Im not really concerned about gutting and skinning, i can do that myself.
Im hoping that my goat friend will have one done soon, we are going to buy boer kiko crosses from them probalbly and use them to clear the brush and then use them for dinner.

[bbbuddy]

We BBQ'd whole a young dairy buck, about 6 mos old. Meat was tender, not dry, and tasted more like pork than anything else, was the agreement between 6 people, one of whom is a retired butcher. He would have thought it was pork had we not told him it was goat.

We put a rub on, laid the whole goat in the BBQ on a bed of tin foil, then just lit the two end burners (3 burner BBQ) on low, closed the lid, and it was done 4 hours later...YUM

[gerald77]

i've only had goat shanks but they were soooooooo good and tender and soooooooo good. every goat i look at now i want to eat. i've heard it's good on pizza too. i've seriously thought about getting a meat goat so i can have more. i can't compare it to anything i've had before just that it is soooooo good.

[tailwagging]

Originally Posted by Naturaldane

Im hoping that my goat friend will have one done soon, we are going to buy boer kiko crosses from them probalbly and use them to clear the brush and then use them for dinner.

OOOOOOO how nice!

[tailwagging]

We use to make goat burger helper and goat stew. Curry goat is good too, there is a Jamaican restaurant up in NC that served it.

[Goat Servant]

Oh da coconut milk. Put your meat in a dutch oven add can of coconut milk and the herbs & spices to your taste. Last 10 minutes add kale or some kind of greens.. you will think you have gone to heaven.Serve over rice. I sent this recipe to our local PBS station and they pubilshed it in their cookbook!

OK you all for underground...from local Hispanic friends. Get some teqiula plant. Quarter your meat and wrap in foil with tequila. In the pit you have dug with rocks that are red hot, place meat, cover with dirt let cook for about 4 hrs. This was the best I've ever had EXCEPT for chops....bbq'd chops. yes they are small maybe thats why they are so good!!! Our butcher came for a BBQ and kept filling his plate.

[homebirtha]

We love goat meat here too. It's VERY mild with no hint of gaminess. I think it's kind of like very mild beef or veal.

We eat it in lots of ways. My absolute favorite are the loin chops. They're small, like little lollipops, but HOLY COW!! They are so delicious. Better then lamb chops or any other meat I've ever had. We do ribs, but they're also on the small side, so you need a lot.

I cook the shoulder either slow-roasted in the oven, or in the crockpot. The other day, I used a shoulder and leg in the crockpot and made pulled BBQ. It was fabulous!

We'll also do the shoulders as a roast with potatoes, carrots, etc. in a dutch oven in the oven. Very yummy.

We also do ground meat and make burgers. It's my kids favorite kind of burger. I find it much milder then the beef burgers I make. But then, the beef is from 100% grass-fed steers, so it's strong for beef. With the ground goat, I do add some oatmeal or bread crumbs to hold it together. I do them in a frying pan with some oil. They are very lean, so you definitely need to keep an eye on them as they cook and you may have to add some more oil if they start to stick.

I was honestly very surprised by how much we liked goat meat. I was prepared to have to "learn to like it". But my whole family loved it from the first bite. We are using a lot less beef these days. We buy a half a steer and we're usually just about out by now. Instead, I have about 1/4 of it still left because we eat so much goat. I'm not sure we'll buy a large amount of beef like that again, since we can raise our own goat.

[Jcran]

interesting post on the comparison with pork! I would have to agree although I didn't think of it until just then...the "flake" of the meat in a chili verde is very similar-that is usually how I do the goat roasts. I guess I compare to lamb in that the flavor of the fat has that hint if you get fat around or marbled in a chop. I don't really like venison but I LOVE goat. We've got two wethers out on brush right now, and while they are only about 50-60 lbs each, I am really tempted not to wait until they close on the 100 lb mark. At what weight do most of you folks slaughter? We have always gone at about 100 lbs but I think I read from someone that 60-80 lbs is better?