Pulled Goat

Sorry it's been a while. I've been finishing off the latest book. I pressed "send" yesterday. Whew. A book on whole grains as main courses--no side dishes. And no grain flours or pearled grains. Instead, whole grains themselves. But that's not out until next year at this time.

Right now, it's still goaty around here. So I thought I'd share a recipe from the book. You have a copy, right? If not, click here. I promise you'll not only get a book about meat, milk, and cheese. You'll also laugh a whole lot. Did you know Bon Appetit declared this month that if in five years we're all eating goat, it'll be because of our book? Crazy. We were thunderstruck. And then went back to eating goat.

So here's a Texas-sized recipe for pulled goat. It's spicy, sweet, savory, salty, and even a little umami. Have it on buns with pickle relish or chow chow. Maybe a sliced red onion, too. But first, you've got to make it.

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Let's Talk: An Imprecise Science

Let's say we had to divide the world of cooking-at-the-stove into techniques. I'm sure there's overlap among the categories; but in a ridiculously general way, here's about what we'd find:

• Roasting/Barbecuing
• Grilling
• Broiling
• Steaming
• Deep-frying
• Sautéing/Stir-frying
• Braising
• Stewing/Boiling

I've linked roasting and barbecuing because in the latter technique, you're basically turning your grill into a big oven. Yep, you might add smoke. But you're cooking food indirectly, to the side of the high-sear heat, usually at a lower temperature than the inferno levels that happen when you're grilling.

Same with sautéing and stir-frying because the techniques are similar: high heat, caramelized sugars, snapped-apart protein chains. Sure, there are big differences. A sauté usually ends in a fond at the bottom of the skillet, from which a sauce is built. A stir-fry? Not so much. But we can still lump them together in terms of the physics and chemistry of what happens to the food.

Same with stewing and boiling. Sure, a stewed chicken is cooked in less water; but it's still a matter of getting that water to bubble evenly around the chicken, whether you're stewing it or boiling it.

So which is your favorite? Do you have one? Any that leap to mind? Maybe you could tell us why?

Mine should be obvious to readers of this blog.

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Red-Cooking Ham

We're dancing around here. Seriously. Dancing. And we're white boys. We don't dance. Without biting our upper lips. But we're doing it anyway because our book, HAM: AN OBSESSION WITH THE HINDQUARTER, got nominated for a James Beard award! Holy cow. Or pig. Or something.

We cannot believe it. We were nominated for one of the most prestigious awards in the country for a book that is at the heart and soul of who we are: Bruce's crazy-good recipes and my rather fractured take on the narrative that is our lives.

To celebrate, I thought I'd put up one of Bruce's favorite recipes: a red-cooking ham. It's a traditional Chinese braise, named for the fact that soy sauce takes on a red cast when long stewed--this time with a fresh ham, a gorgeous, decadent pork-out for the table. I had intended to blog this recipe in the weeks ahead; but with the nomination today I thought, oh, what the heck. Let's all get us a big taste of our favorite back-side. So without further ado. . . .

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Indonesian-Style Goat Curry

It's official. The goat book is out there and on sale. Early by a couple of weeks. It's available right here. (Bit of a shocking photo, eh?)

If you liked the ham tome, you'll love GOAT: MEAT, MILK, CHEESE. Let me give you the first sentence: "I lied while wearing make-up."

What? It doesn't sound like a cookbook? Oh, but it is: quick guide to butchering, the physics and chemistry of cheese-making, and over 100 of Bruce's killer recipes. Plus some rather salacious stories. One involves a poster of Farah Fawcett Majors. And yes, it's still a cookbook.

To celebrate, I'm going to drop an original recipe here, one Bruce created just for all of us who hang around this blog. This one's not in the book--call it a "blog exclusive": a hot and sour and spicy curry, just a little sweet, modeled less on Thai wet curries than on the savory ones found in Singapore and Indonesia. So let's get to it.

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Pork Butt Braised in Milk and Spices

If you don't know this Italian classic, it's high time you got acquainted. It's sumptuous: the pork sweet and tender as it slowly cooks in the milk.

Milk? Sure enough. Milk is one of the few protein structures on our planet that will not coagulate over heat. Put a piece of chicken on the grill and the proteins begin to coagulate into those layers of "done meat." Same goes for the proteins (a. k. a. glutens) in bread.

But not those in milk. That's because the basic milk protein, casein, is negatively charged. The molecules can't get near each other--unless you add an acid and cause the calcium ringlet that holds the casein strands together to come undone so that the proteins float free and get diluted in the surrounding water, thereby losing their group strength. Voilà, very loose curds. Or unless you add cultures that give the casein a negative-ion hair cut. Voilà, much stronger curds--also called "cheese making."

But without all that fandango, you can boil milk down to almost nothing and it won't coagulate--except for that milk skin on pudding, a skin that's actually a layer, not of coagulation, but of casein drying out. But with enough pork fat in the mix, you don't have to worry about that skin. And you've got the best braised pork imaginable.

Figure on serving four if it's all you've got, six if it's part of a coursed sit-down. OK, so let's get to it.

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Spanish-Style Leg of Goat

As you may know, Bruce and I are about to see the first-ever, all-goat cookbook published in April. Want to know more? Click here.

And don't just think goat meat--although it is the world's most consumed meat. Think cheese. And milk.

We've written a book devoted to the entire goaty world. More about the science and travails of making goat cheese than you can imagine. And more recipes for goat cheese-laced dishes, too. More about the molecular structure of goat milk than you could want to know. And lots of recipes that use goat milk and yogurt. (Chocolate frozen goat yogurt!) Interviews with Bill Niman, with some of the best goat cheese makers in the country. And lots of hysterical stories about two guys in the country, trying to come to terms with goats. Let's just say it involves some rather bizarre moments of load-bearing Farrah Fawcett Major posters on walls and Bruce's first time with a nipple. Need I really say more?

I've been dropping some hints about the book here--and I thought I'd take today to share on of my favorite recipes: a leg of goat roasted over a bed of tomatoes, chickpeas, and sherry.

It's Bruce's whimsical reinterpretation, sort of Spain meets Safeway. I hope you'll like it as much as I have (on countless occasions in the past year). And if you don't want to use goat, consider this one with a leg of lamb, particular for the holidays ahead.

Figure on its serving six with some starchy sides. Goat cheese-laced mashed potatoes, anyone? Let's get to it.

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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.)

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Braised Rabbit with Coriander Seeds, Green Olives, and White Wine

Vegetarians can be an off-putting lot. I should know. I was one for years. I'd beat you with a carrot if you suggested I eat meat.

I'm still in sympathy with the cause. But I eat meat. We should talk about that dichotomy sometime.

Anyway, earlier this year I was on L.A. NPR to talk about our HAM book, the drop-dead funny cookbook (no lie) about all things piggishly back-ended (look for it here). I made some cracks about raising and eating our own pig. Very light-hearted stuff, despite its being about death.

Afterwards, I got about many requests from people in LalaLand to be facebook friends. Wow, I thought, NPR has quite a following out there.

Until I discovered they were militant vegetarians. And started writing horrible things on my wall. And posting videos of animal slaughter. And sending messages to all my facebook friends about what a nightmare I was.

I cleaned these people off my lists as quickly as I could. Bruce and I talked about it. Decided it was a strange quirk. And went on our way. Until he twittered two weeks ago about making rabbit for dinner. And got word-lashed and then unfollowed by a bunch of similar types who thought his meal choice was unethical.

Again, the ethics of eating meat. Let's talk about them sometime. But for now, I'd like to share with you the rabbit recipe that got him defriended and unfollowed. Because it's so darn wonderful. Every single bite of its four servings. If you've never eaten rabbit, now's the time. It's autumnal, comforting, light, and savory. What could be better?

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Red Cooking Tofu

It's been a couple of bad days. We've been on the road for weeks now, as you probably know--and came home to 1) a dead stove (no way to turn the oven on), 2) a broken dishwasher (a nice leak all over the kitchen floor, staining it for a week), and 3) a phone company snafu of epic proportions. They shut off our phone! Their error, a keying error, trying to shut off another phone. But it means they also shut off our internet. The phone's back on now after much screaming but they're telling us it'll be a week before they can turn the DSL back on. Somehow, they were able to shut it off in 24 hours but can't turn it on for over a week.

Which means I have a ton of work and no way to do it--except driving an hour (I live really, really rurally) to a Starbucks, where I'm sitting right now, online, trying to get all my work done in the thrumming drone of a zillion conversations.

Sigh.

Times like these, I need comfort food. Much comfort food.

Which for me often means tofu. I love it! I know: me, a carnivore of ravenous proportions. But there's something so delicious, soft, and comforting about tofu, particularly in a deep braise. Here's a real secret: often, I'd rather have it than mac-and-cheese.

Do you have any secrets like that? Comfort foods that most people think aren't? I'd love to hear about them.

But for now, on to the tofu, done in the classic Chinese braise.

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Oxtails Bourguignon

Now that's a pot of luscious real food. When I was a little kid, I loved oxtail soup, a hearty German dish that uses a rather low-class cut from the beast: the tail, the little sections of vertebrae that are stocked with chuck-like meat, lots of collagen, and some pretty good opportunities for gnawing.

In other words, heaven. And as with all forms of paradise, a struggle. Bliss is a journey--and not always easy.

Over the last year, Bruce and I have wrestled with some of the ethics of eating meat. After I went on an L. A. NPR show to talk about the ham book (here), I was besieged by some rather militant vegans who insisted that I come to terms with the ethics of being, well, not a carnivore, but an omnivore.

Unfortunately, no matter how much I tried to explain our ever-evolving position, they wouldn't listen. I hope you might. Bruce and I have come to a few conclusions over the past year.

1. We (almost exclusively) eat meat from local suppliers at farmers' markets and farms. Unfortunately, this guideline falls apart when we go into heavy recipe-testing mode. There's no way we can crank out fifteen pork recipes for a magazine only buying what our friends have on their farm.

2. I only eat meat once a day, and not always then. Bruce isn't with me on this one, but I've come to the conclusion that I feel better and am more alert if I have fewer meat moments in my day. This is a personal decision. I have NO scientific basis for knowing that I feel better. But I believe it. And believing makes it so.

3. If we're going to eat meat, we're going to eat all of an animal. This one's a little harder for most people. But we've come to the decision that it's ethically wrong to kill an animal just to eat the tenderloin and certain prime cuts. No, we need to eat as much of the animal as possible. Because for us, if we don't, a life has been wasted for silly excess. 

And so oxtails. AKA, sheer delight. One of my favorite things. Here's the recipe:

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