Sali Boti
OK, I promised. I promised to blog the best thing Bruce has ever made.
Maybe I got a little carried away?
Or maybe not. Get this: a double-spice curry, with dried apricots and almonds, a long braise with bone-in cuts for the winter, warm and comforting. Lots of slurping required at the table.
Sold?
As you probably know, next year will debut our next cookbook, the first-ever, all-goat cookbook: meat, milk, and cheese.
As you may also know, goat is the world's most consumed meat.
And goat milk is drunk by more people than any other milk.
And goat milk itself is the universally digested mammal milk, given to babies in the zoo when their mothers refuse to nurse them.
Oh, they'll be much more to say about these things in the months ahead. For now, I'm giving you a sneak look at one of the recipes in it. By the way, the book's already up on amazon here, a lonely placeholder page with nary a photo. But hey, at least people can reserve a copy!
The long and the short of it? Last weekend, we had a rather over-the-top dinner party--and the main course was this fantastic curry, made with goat shoulder chops. I'm going to give it to you so that you can make it with goat or other, more accessible cuts. But if you can get your hands on some goat at a local farmers' market, at a halal butcher shop, or at a high-end market, I would highly recommend you try it. You'll be dumbfounded: so aromatic, so flavorful, so ridiculous.
So let's get to it--a braise with four servings. (Bruce doubled it last weekend for a crowd.)
First, mix this curry melange in a large bowl: 1/4 cup cider vinegar, 2 teaspoons ground coriander, 2 teaspoons ground cumin, 1 teaspoon ground cardamom, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.
Whew. You can't do a good curry without a good spice drawer.
Now dump in the meat: 2 1/2 pounds bone-in goat shoulder chops, cut into large pieces, preferably with a bit of bone in each. No goat? Then try one of these: 2 1/2 pounds bone-in lamb shoulder chops, cut the same way; 2 1/2 pounds country-style pork ribs; or 2 1/2 pounds beef short ribs, preferably cross-cut (rather than long-cut with the bones).
Stir it all around and set it aside at room temperature while you go on with the curry.
Now for the double-spice part of sali boti. Heat 3 tablespoons ghee (clarified butter) or peanut oil in a large French casserole or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add 2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds, 1 1/2 teaspoons fennel seeds, 1 teaspoon whole cloves, and 1/4 teaspoon saffron. Stir this around until the spices are very aromatic, about 1 minute.
Add 1 large onion, roughly chopped. Stir this around in the spices until it softens a bit, maybe 3 minutes. You already won't believe the aromas in your kitchen.
Stir in 1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger and 2 minced garlic cloves. Stir these around for a few seconds, then pour in all the meat from the bowl. Make sure you also scrape every bit of liquid and spice into the pot. Also add 1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth, 3 tablespoons tomato purée, and 1 tablespoon dark brown sugar. Bring it all to a simmer, stirring frequently over medium-high heat to get all the little burned bits up off the pot's interior.
Cover the pot, reduce the heat, and cook at a low simmer for 1 hour.
Now add the final bits of bliss: 1/2 cup sliced almonds; 12 dried apricots, preferably the bright orange Turkish apricots, halved; 1 teaspoon salt; and 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.
Cover the pot again and continue simmering until the meat is meltingly tender, about 1 more hour for the goat or lamb shoulder chops, up to 2 more hours for the country-style pork ribs or the beef short ribs. When you stick a fork into a piece of meat, it should plop back into the pot as you lift up the fork, not stay glommed onto the tines.
Before serving, set the pot aside, covered and off the heat, for 10 to 20 minutes to blend the flavors.
One final thing: you can serve it over jasmine or basmati rice, although you needn't. (Bruce didn't.) And there are still whole cloves in the mix. I love to let them pop flavors in my mouth; others might want to pick them out before digging in.
Best thing Bruce ever made? Well, it's saying a lot, but I'll let you know if and when I find other contenders.
Mark Scarbrough | Posted on Wednesday, November 3, 2010 at 12:51PM | in Comfort Food, Curries, Hunks of Meat, Main Courses
Reader Comments (10)
Maybe I am not the only one who would not know this stuff,...the number 1 meat consumed worldwide is goat?!?!? Are we missing something here in the United States?
I know Mcdonalds serves worldwide, so do they sell goat hamburgers?
Yep, goat. And it's utterly sustainable. There are no big goat lots, goat farms. Yet more goat is eaten than--get this--all other meat combined. And here's another bit: goat chops have less fat than boneless skinless chicken breasts. Sort of nuts, eh?
No goat burgers that I know of--although there's a killer recipe with harissa in the new book.
M.
That dinner was utterly fantastic! Thanks for writing about it, Mark
New reader here. I love that gave us other options in case goat is too difficult to access. I do a meal plan for myself every two weeks in order to try new recipes and I am going to include this incredibly beautiful looking dinner in my next plan. I'll probably use local lamb or the beef option as I'm not certain where I might find goat.
I will let you know how I do with it :-)
Lyndsay: Welcome. And I can't wait to hear the results.
M.
I was able to print the entire article with the recipe for the Sali Boti. Now on to search for Goat meat.
Lain: Are you the fabulous foodie we met in Pittsburgh? I'm so glad it worked out. I fiddled with the code a bit and simplified it--so maybe I did something right on my end. As you can see through the recipe, it doesn't have to be goat--you could use lamb or pork or beef short ribs. But for goat, check out any Jamaican or Caribbean grocery stores near you (although sometimes they're goat is a bit stinky). Or try a halal butcher shop. Milder is better. Or look up your state on eatwild.com
Mark
I made this for our dinner party last night and it was wonderful. Our Westside Market in Cleveland Ohio has a great purveyor of Lamb and Goat, Foster's Meats, and the goat that I buy from them is very good.
Forgot to mention that when I made it I added a step of defatting the sauce.
Steve: So glad you liked it. Our goat was so lean, there was nothing to defat from the sauce. But doing so in the abundance of fat is always a good idea.
Mark