BBQ108/17 – Butterflied Leg of Goat:
As I have mentioned in some of the previous posts, I didn’t cook for 7 weeks as the garden was getting redone then I was away with work and then away on holiday. Because of this I missed the first half of Goatober but I was still keen to take part as I enjoyed it so much last year. I was chatting to James from Cabrito Goat on Twitter and he suggested a recipe for butterflied leg of goat that he cooked with DJ BBQ. I watched the video and knew I had to cook it!
The post for Goat Taco’s shows the dishes I cooked for Goatober last year:
The Meat:
I bought half a goat from Turner and George last year, they don’t have it listed this year so I bought it direct from Cabrito Goat for £120 – Why half a goat? I wanted to cook a few dishes and if the leg is £40, shoulder with neck £54 (£36 for just the shoulder) then I felt £120 for half a goat was good value for money overall as you would get a few extra cuts out of it and a chance to try and butcher/cut it myself.
There are a lot of photos from the butchery part so I will write that up separately or this page will take days to load!
If you don’t want to butcher half a goat just buy the leg from Cabrito Goat or From Turner and George.
The Prep:
I watched the YouTube video a couple of times and took notes so I knew how to prepare and cook the dish. I started off by making the marinade by mixing 3 bay leaves, harissa paste, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, olive oil, smoked garlic (morrissons stock it surprisingly, saved me smoking my own!) and salt.
The goat leg was placed into a foodsaver bag then I spooned the marinade in on each side, sealed the bag and mixed everything up. This was left in the fridge for 24 hours.
The Cook:
On the day of the cook I fired up a full chimney of Birch lumpwood from Oxford Charcoal, I have used it with lamb before and it worked really well so I thought it would work as well with goat. They describe Birch as follows:
Birch charcoal really is a thing of beauty. It has a mirror-like finish, with a subtle sweet, but kind of ‘mineral’ flavour profile.
We can’t help feeling sad if someone grills lamb with anything else!
Once the charcoal was lit I placed a charcoal basket in the middle of the grill and poured the charcoal flat into the grill on the other side of the charcoal basket. This was to create a hot and a cooler side in the grill. I placed it flat rather than in the baskets as the meat was quite big and would span an area larger than the baskets.
I took the goat out of the vac bag, it had a great colour to it. The smell was incredible!
Once the grill was ready I placed the meat to cook directly over the charcoal.
The last butterflied lamb leg I cooked took 20 minutes so I factored on this taking about the same amount of time. I kept moving the meat and flipping it every few minutes. It was flaring up a bit but I know from previous cooks the charred bits are the best! At one point there was a lot of smoke coming out so I put the kettle lid on to try and aim it out the window to save my neighbours washing. This calmed the fire down a bit but reduced the charred bits. I would leave the lid off next time and aim for more charred bits.
I kept probing the meat looking for a mix of medium rare, medium and medium well. Due to the size of the meat and the irregular shape it would be almost impossible to cook it all to the same temperature over fire but as I like my meat less cooked, my wife likes medium and the kids prefer it a bit more done there was something for everyone here!
Around 25 minutes in the meat was ready to come off and rest.
There are a few charred bits, trust me – they are the best bits!
Whilst the meat was resting I made a sauce by mixing chopped preserved lemons, white pepper, mint and olive oil.
After a 10 minute rest I sliced the meat, nice and pink:
You can see the various levels the meat had been cooked to with some bits pinker than others.
A lot of juice was coming out of the meat and it smelt great. I did pick a few bits off and loved the taste!
Time to Eat:
I sliced it all up into chunks.
Mixed the sauce over the top.
I really should have made some flatbreads but I had cooked/prepped too much food this weekend so bought some garlic and coriander naan breads which I warmed in the grill. They were pretty good with the meat.
Yoghurt was smeared over the bread then meat placed on top, some of the sauce and then zaatar.
I made sure to get some of the charred bits!
Leftovers:
We enjoyed this meal so much I made up leftovers for the next day. As the meat was cold I sliced it up thinner and loaded up the bread. I rolled them from the side and wrapped in foil. Great meal to have at work on a freezing cold Monday!
Summary:
This was such a great dish. Top quality meat, a really tasty recipe and nice to cook directly over the fire. I was a bit nervous beforehand as I had to cut the leg, remove the bone then butterfly it but it wasn’t too hard so overall it felt like a great achievement!
The marinade smelt and tasted great, a really good recipe and the sauce with the preserved lemons worked really well. I would recommend this recipe for sure, I will put it on my hit list to cook again!
| Cook Equipment: | Weber Grill |
| Cook Method: | Direct |
| Charcoal: | Oxford Charcoal Birch Lumpwood |
| Smoking Wood: | None |
| Cook temperature: | 250C |
| Cook time: | 25m plus 10m rest |
| Internal temperature: | Mix but aiming for 55C to 60C in most parts |
| Notes: | Cook it direct more and char the edges more as these taste the best! |