Coconut Curried Goat With Rice and Red Lentils

One of my favorite treats as a child growing up in diverse Washington D.C was when my father brought home takeout of curried goat and Roti from some hole in the wall. That was good eating. He was a man that didn't stray from his staples of Nigerian food, but he did like good Caribbean food. Lately I have been hankering for goat meat. In the Bahamas I was disappointed with their Americanized fare and didn't see any. I must have been asleep at the the foodie radar to realize goat meat has gone mainstream and is now served in many a restaurant and featured in magazines. Last time I had some goat was at a dumpy Indian restaurant and it was good but had more bone than meat for my tastes. But the sauce was spicy and thick. I purchased my goat at Pete's Fresh Market a great chain that has a large Mexican and Asian clientele. Any sort of exotic produce or meat is available and they have it at pretty fair prices. I eyed a goat leg in the butcher case. To big for just me, but I need to get one one day for a BBQ. The goat on display looked like rib cages and me not knowing cuts was perplexed. But the butcher told me he could cut it down into pieces for me, I was hoping for a boneless type of cut to cook down, but started off with 6 pounds of pieces. expertly cut up for me. The pieces he gave thankfully had a lot of meat.
6 pounds is a lot and my aim was to cook it down in the pressure cooker and eat of it all this over the weekend. It gets even better the next day.Here is my 'recipe'. Its not formal, just what I did.


Clean goat meat and pat dry. In an uncovered pressure cooker brown 2 large onions, some tablespoons of curry powder to your taste, cumin, salt, pepper,turmeric ,chili powder, and the meat with a bit of oil. Note the goat has fat, and I didn't want it to greasy. Cut up and seed about 3 jalapenos or a lesser amount of Scotch bonnet peppers if you can get them( depends on your heat tolerance). Add some cilantro and a cleaned sliced leek , and some leftover chopped tomato to the mix. Mix up . Add about 2 cups of water ( next time I would add less as it creates more liquid). Cover , seal, and cook at a pressure of 15 lbs for 45-50 minutes. Cool down with cold water method or naturally until lid releases. Drain off any excessive liquids and fat( I had about 4 cups I drained off , so next time add less liquid. But I left enough in). Stir in one can of coconut milk to finish. Serve with rice boiled with red lentils and garnish with more fresh cilantro and maybe a some jalapeno if you desire it more spicy.

You can cook this a normal stove top method but the cooking time will be between 2-3 hours. Pressure cooking cuts the time down and yields really tender and succulent meat.