Recipe: Curry Jerked Goat Tacos

I know this is a recipe that a lot of you have been waiting for! Curry Jerked Goat Tacos.

I know someone who regularly buys and slaughters goats in the Madison area. He uses every scrap of meat and makes drums with the hide. Somehow I ended up with a big chunk of goat. This is an awesome position to be in.

Goat is tough sinuous, stringy, bony meat. This means it's absolutely packed with flavor, needs to be treated just right and can stand up to a lot of flavorings. In fact almost all of my favorite preparations for goat involve some type of curry.

This is a quick recipe and its super duper easy... as long as you have some goat.

Beef spareribs, brisket, shank or a leg of lamb would also be a great substitute if for some odd reason you don't know a drum maker from Ghana.

Recipe: Berkshire Pork Carnitas

Carnitas are a Mexican staple of the taqueria. Traditionally carnitas is a pork shoulder which is simmered in lard until it falls apart with the merest mention of a fork.

That's the traditional method; I don't actually simmer the shoulder in lard. Just somehow doesn't seem... healthy. Instead I braise it in a mixture of apple cider, red wine, cinnamon and water. 

I took a similar path to browning as I did for the beef shortribs. I grilled them.

Recipe: Shrimp and Scallop Ceviche Tacos

This is a very basic ceviche. I didn't want to go overboard or too crazy since, to be honest, I wasn't sure how many people would be willing to try ceviche, I should give my guests a little more credit.

Ceviche is a Central and South American coastal staple.  Seafood is "cooked" in a highly acidic juice, ideally from a citrus fruit to lend the acidity as well as a pleasant flavor. This acidic bath inhibits microbacterial growth and slowly denatures the proteins in the seafood which firms it, making it textured like it was perfectly cooked.

Here is my recipe:

12-15 limes juiced -enough to cover
The zest of 1 line.
2 lbs of shrimp cut into 1/2" cubes
1 lb of Bay scallops
1 red bell pepper diced
1 red onion quartered and thinly sliced
handful of diced Cilantro
salt and pepper to taste
3 Avocados to garnish

Add the Shrimp and Scallops to a bowl and cover with lime juice and lime zest. Toss a few times to make sure every piece is exposed to the juice and store in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours.

Once it's fully "cooked" in the lime juice you could toss it with the vegetables then drain off the juice, this can be drank in shots called Tiger's milk.

However, since mine was going to sit on an open table for 3-4 hours during the party I decided to keep everything in the juice to inhibit the growth of anything nasty.

I had avocados on hand to slice over each taco as they were being assembled. The smooth, rich, creamy texture of avocado makes the perfect counterpoint to the firm tangy ceviche.

You can easily replace the seafood with any other type of ocean fish. Also changing some of the lime juice for other citrus fruits can lend more dimensions. Grapefruit, orange, lemon, all are great substitutions. Tomato sauce is often added in Ecuador.

-NOM!

Pork Bulgogi Taco

Pork Bulgogi is one of my favorite Korean BBQ'd meats. It's something I really miss about living in San Francisco. I haven't found a really great Korean BBQ place in Madison yet. If anyone has any suggestions.......

The key to great bulgogi is really thinly cut meat. By slicing the meat thinly you greatly increase the surface area which makes the marinating a snap as well as making the cooking time brief. This is important because the pork used is shoulder which is a tough cut. With tough meat, either you cook it very hot very fast, or very low very slow... there is no in between unless you like eating something roughly approximating Charlie's boot.

It's really hard to cut meat thinly. There is a great cheat to cutting meat extremely thinly. You put it in the freezer for about 45 minutes, once the meat firms up you can almost shave the meat into paper thin slices. This is a perfect preparation for a lot of Asian dishes.

Braised Beef Shortrib Tacos

I got bone-in beef short ribs from an Amish Market in Baraboo. Short ribs are a fatty cut of meat which is part of the ribcage. It expands and contracts with each breath, constantly being worked awake or asleep. This meat is absolutely chock full of collagen this are intra-muscular, tough stringy proteins. This makes it an extremely tough and well-worked piece of meat with a depth of flavor which is nearly unmatched in the rest of the cow.

Stolen from http://sassy-spoon.com/ A great Charleston SC food blog!

Collagen can go two ways. Cook it under high heat and it'll bunch up and get tight and tough. The long proteins will basically turn into a stiff raincoat around each muscle fiber and will become nearly impossible to eat.

But if you gently cook it slowly, over a low heat the collagen, instead of freaking out and bunching up, will relax. It's like lowering yourself into a hot tub after a long day of standing on your feet cooking. The collagen becomes gelatinous; it turns into tiny sheets of meaty jelly between each muscle fiber. This makes the meat incredibly tender without adding much fat. This is the joy of braising. It's like a little hot tub for meat!

Amish Braised Beef Ribs

I have a good great friend who regularly goes to the meat market near Baraboo. She picks me up beef short ribs, chickens, tongue, smoked pork hocks. All the great odds and ends which make my OK cooking great.

I wanted to create a beef taco from rib meat. Beef rib meat is incredibly tough and takes a huge amount of time to cook properly. It's easy to overheat and dry it out before it's done cooking, so I decided not to smoke it. I wanted to get some good smoky flavors into the meat so I first charcoal grilled the meat to get a nice hard sear on the outside of the meat.

You lose some of the fond and rendered fat by charcoal grilling rather then searing it in a dutch oven. I think this is well balanced by the delicious grilled flavor that is imparted.