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Melissa Leithwood Names This Year’s “It” Meat — No Kidding

 

As I write, my kitchen is filled with the lus­cious aroma of goat curry warm­ing in the oven. And I have Melissa Lei­th­wood to thank for that.

I met this lovely young woman sev­eral years ago when she inter­viewed me over tea at the Royal York Hotel for her master’s the­sis on how chefs grow their busi­nesses sus­tain­ably and sup­port local food. Her case study is a leader in this field: well known Toronto chef Jamie Kennedy.

At the time, I was still food colum­nist at the Toronto Star, a job I held for 18 years until resign­ing in 2007 to pur­sue other chal­lenges — this blog, radio, cook­books and my memoir.

I was also being dragged — and still am — kick­ing and scream­ing into the dig­i­tal world. Because of being techno-challenged, I was impressed with Melissa’s ease as she wielded an almost invis­i­ble lit­tle device to record our con­ver­sa­tion. I was also drawn to her soft-spoken assur­ance, wealth of knowl­edge and charm­ing personality.

And so we kept in touch by e-mail and she recently con­tacted me to say she was in Toronto for the sum­mer. A few weeks ago, we met for cof­fee at Wanda’s Pie in the Sky in Kens­ing­ton where we caught up and, among other lively top­ics, dis­cussed Melissa’s pas­sion for goat.

With a master’s degree in envi­ron­men­tal stud­ies and an advanced grad­u­ate diploma in busi­ness, my fel­low foodie and young men­tor (she gives me weekly tuto­ri­als on how to use Twit­ter and other things dig­i­tal) has the per­fect combo of knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence for her lat­est ven­ture: a doc­tor­ate from the Uni­ver­sity of West­ern Ontario in Lon­don, Ont., on social media within the con­text of the food industry.

“I hap­pened upon goat,” she explains, “because there was a fund­ing pro­posal by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment on inno­va­tion in the food indus­try. I stepped in with a pro­posal about how social media can help gen­er­ate new mar­kets for goat meat.”

Since she began her study ear­lier this year, things have taken off at a fast trot. (Okay, enough with the goat puns — I kid you not.)

Goat, the most widely eaten red meat in the world, could not have a more enthu­si­as­tic or savvy champion.

“It’s com­mon in Africa, India, South Amer­ica and the Caribbean,” Melissa says. “And it’s now becom­ing pop­u­lar in North America.”

She cites the health ben­e­fits of goat meat. “It’s low in fat, calo­ries and cho­les­terol and high in pro­tein.” Goat is also sus­tain­able, she con­tin­ues. “Goats are raised out­doors in fields eat­ing grass. They’re extremely finicky and won’t eat corn as cows and other ani­mals will. Eat­ing grass makes the meat lean and high in Omega-3 fatty acids.”

In North Amer­ica, peo­ple are seek­ing out eth­ni­cally diverse food. Goat fits that bill. There are also new cook­books pro­mot­ing it.

Melissa, who cooks goat reg­u­larly, admits it’s “a chal­leng­ing meat. It’s easy to either over­cook or under­cook it.”

Most goat in this coun­try is imported from Africa or New Zealand and is usu­ally sold frozen. How­ever, spe­cialty butch­ers like Sanagan’s in Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket sell it fresh and sourced locally.

Melissa has turned me on to goat which I had mostly eaten in West Indian roti. I have tried the excel­lent goat patty at Patty King in Kens­ing­ton and recently devel­oped this tasty curry.

Goat Curry

I used a whole leg of goat for this pur­chased at my favourite butcher’s Sanagan’s in Kens­ing­ton Mar­ket. They cut it in chunks. bone-in, the ideal way to have it pre­pared it for this dish. I first cre­ated this curry for din­ner when my daugh­ter Ruthie came over with her girl­friend Usha. Usha is from Sri Lanka, doesn’t eat beef and likes her food spicy. You can use more or less curry pow­der and/or curry paste. You can also use hot or mild ver­sions of them as desired. I used Madras curry pow­der from House of spice in Kens­ing­ton and Patak’s korma curry paste. Ghee is basi­cally clar­i­fied but­ter and is optional.

This tastes much bet­ter made a day or two ahead. I like it served over smashed thin-skinned yukon gold pota­toes. Slice and cook them until soft, then drain and add milk heated with but­ter and salt. Smash with potato masher leav­ing chunks.

About 4 lb/2 kg bone-in goat meat

4 tbsp veg­etable oil or ghee

2 large onions, chopped

2 tbsp grated or finely chopped fresh gin­ger root

2 tbsp Madras or other good qual­ity curry powder

2 tbsp curry paste

1 cin­na­mon stick

398-ml can (about 1 ³⁄₄ cups) coconut milk

398-ml can (about 1 ³⁄₄ cups)tomatoes, with juices

About 1 cup chicken stock or water

Salt to taste

In large heavy dutch oven or saucepan with lid, heat 2 table­spoons of oil over medium-high heat. Add goat meat in sin­gle layer and cook in batches until browned all over.

Heat remain­ing 2 table­spoon of oil in large heavy skil­let over medium heat. Add onions and cook a minute or two. Add gin­ger root; cook until golden brown and caramelized, about 10 min. Add curry pow­der, curry paste and cin­na­mon stick; cook a cou­ple of min­utes more or until aro­matic. Add to goat mix­ture. Add coconut milk and toma­toes. Add chicken stock, adding a lit­tle more if nec­es­sary to cover meat. Bring mix­ture to a boil; reduce heat to low and cook, par­tially cov­ered, 2 to 3 hours or until goat meat is soft and just falling off bones. Remove bones. Taste; add salt.

Cool curry, then place in fridge until fat con­geals on sur­face. Remove fat.

Serve with mashed or smashed pota­toes, rice or noo­dles, raita (plain yogurt mixed with grated cucum­ber) and favourite chut­neys and/or Indian pickles.

Makes about 8 servings.

For more on goat meat, check these links:

Con­tribute to this goat recipe con­test:  www.lafujimama.com/2011/06/goat-milk/

This entry was posted in goat, Recipe, Sleuthing and tagged bruce weinstein, charming personality, diploma in business, e mail, food columnist, foodie, funding proposal, goat, goat curry, goat meat, goaterie, graduate diploma in business, ivey school of business, jamie kennedy, local food, luscious aroma, marion kane, mark scarbrough, mark sisson, melissa leithwood, pie in the sky, royal york hotel, s pie, sanagans, social media, terrific book, toronto star, twitter, university of western ontario, wealth of knowledge. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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