Pulled Goat Kid with sticky onions & Pomegranate glaze – Coronation Goat!

We took quite a little time to decide what to cook on the day of the Coronation of King Charles III.   Coronation Chicken entered the catering lexicon 70 years previously at the Coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953.  I suspect that our Coronation Goat may not have quite the same impact on the culinary world!  It did turn out to be a very special and versatile dish though!

This is the 3rd of a series of goat dishes we have published.  We are cooking some wonderful Goat Kid from the lovely people at Moat Goats.  Our first one was – Braised Goat Kid Shoulder and Chickpea Ragù.   The second was for a very inexpensive but beautiful goat ragù.

Today’s cook though utilised a 2Kg shoulder joint which we thought would be perfect for a slow cooked fuss free dish.
We had all sorts of ideas of the flavour profile that might work with the dish.  In the end we went for a lightly spiced dish braised in pomegranate juice and finished with a pomegranate glaze.

We adapted a recipe from the BBC Good Food website for lamb shoulder with a pomegranate glaze.  The basis of the dish was to marinade the meat in a lightly spiced aromatic paste for 24-48 hours, braise the shoulder slowly on a trivot of onions in pomegranate juice,  and finally turn the braising liquid into a sticky glaze.

Making the paste for the marinade was very straightforward.  The garlic, cinnamon, cumin, oregano and lemon (all the lemon minus the pips) in a blender with 1 tsp salt and 2 tsp black pepper. This was blended until smooth.  As we were cooking goat which is much less fatty than lamb we also added 2tbsp of olive oil to the marinade. The paste was massaged into both sides of the shoulder which was then covered with foil and left in the roasting dish for 24 hours (you can leave if for upto 48 hours).  This was left in the fridge until the morning of the cook.

So on the day of the Coronation we lit our large Big Green Egg and set it up for indirect cooking at around 120C (the original recipe cooked the lamb at 160C for 4 hours).  When there is an opportunity for long slow cooking it is very much what I would opt for.  It also allowed us to disappear for a big chunk of the day to watch the coronation knowing the meat would be ready for us in the evening! The quartered onions were used as a trivet under the goat and 750mls of pomegranate juice was poured over the top as the cooking started.  We managed to find some pure pomegranate juice (unsweetened) with a little difficulty as most are apparently sweetened with artificial sweetener – these may be OK too!  The original recipe suggested covering with foil which I would definitely do in a conventional oven. We only did here for the second half of the cook after around 4 hours at the stage you can see in the picture on the left.

After a further 4 hours the core temperature of the meat had reached 90C.  It was time to remove the foil and carefully pour the meaty pomegranate juices from the roasting dish. These were added to a saucepan with the honey.  This was allowed to bubble on the hob for around 30 minutes to reduce and thicken the glaze.  Meanwhile the goat was re-covered with the foil and allowed to continue cooking.

Once the pomegranate glaze had reduced and thickened, the foil was removed from the meat and some of the glaze poured over it – spread with a brush. This was done every few minutes until all the glaze was used and the meat was left to cook for a further 30 mins, uncovered, until the glaze is bubbling and just starting to char. The meat and the sticky onion sauce was then removed. The meat was covered with foil and a couple of tea towels and left to rest (we left it for around an hour).

Whilst the goat was resting we mixed most of the pomegranate seeds into the yogurt together with the mint leaves.

The goat was shredded. mixed with the sticky onions and served on a bed of rocket and wild garlic (we should have added the rest of the pomegranate seeds to the meat at this stage but forgot until we were plating!!  The whole dish worked perfectly with the home made flat bread we made as the meat was resting!

We will definitely be coming back to this dish………………..

……. do give it a go!

Footnotes:

1. When we cook lamb for pulling we normally stop cooking at a core temperature of around 90C. With our first experience of cooking goat this way I would be tempted to allow it to cook to between 93-95 if you want it to really shred rather than pull into chunks
2. The spicing of this dish was lovely and gentle.  I suspect it would easily take a little more, perhaps some sumac and some cardamon without distorting the overall balance