Jamaican Jerked Goat Neck

It was decided over the weekend that the time had come to dive in and use up the goat neck that we’d gotten from meat club.  It's not that we were afraid of it or anything; we’ve eaten (and loved) goat before, and are all about trying new things -- we just knew it’d require a long cook process and had not had time in so long.  So, we researched, and settled on a jerk seasoning flavor profile found on the NPR website (scroll to the bottom of the linked page for the original).  The seasoning mix is where following someone else’s recipe ended.  After that, I worked on my own and came up with what both Hubby and I think was as pretty darn good meal (or four, or five -- there were, as always, leftovers).

So the first thing I did, as instructed by the “Goats in The Kitchen” dude, Bryan Miller, was to marinate the goat neck in a mixture of beer and lemon juice over night.  I used an Amstel Light and one whole lemon’s worth of juice.

The next morning, I put together the jerk rub by combining the following things in the food processor:

• 1 onion, rough chopped
• 10 cloves of garlic
• 2 tablespoons of dried thyme
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon whole allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/4 cup of soy sauce
• 1 hot pepper

I let the machine run for a minute or two until a paste was formed....

...and then smothered the goat neck with the paste.  Covered with plastic wrap, into the fridge it went for a four-hour rest as I went off to the store for additional ingredients and other groceries.

Four hours later, the crock pot got its turn.  Into it went a bed of collard greens, topped with 4 or 5 plum tomatoes (I forget how many I used) quartered and crushed.

Next, I put the goat neck in the middle, and surrounded it with sliced sweet potatoes and some frozen mango chunks that we’d had in the freezer for a very long time trying to figure out what would happen to them.

I poured in about a cup of water, turned the crock pot to low and walked away.

5 hours later (and just as Hubby was walking in the door -- I know, I'm soooo domesticated), it was done!

This is what the veggies and meat looked like immediately out of the crock pot.

The flavors were great, with a nice balance between sweet and spicy.  My only “complaint” is that there isn’t a lot of meat on a goat neck.  Should I be surprised by this?  Probably not.  Here is how much we actually got:

We ended up with 4 moderately-sized portions of meat, and 5+ generous servings of vegetables.  So, we each ate a plate for dinner, made two full containers for lunch leftovers, plus one large veggies-only container as lunch leftovers.

One thing that did surprise me about goat neck was that the bone was not simply a spinal column.  It was one piece that came off like a vertebrae and then one much longer piece that didn’t come apart.  You can see the pieces in the picture above.  Weird, silly goats with their square pupils and apparently stiff necks.  Lol.

Ming Tsai's Blue Ginger Chipotle Sweet Potato Soup with Bell Pepper-Bacon Salsa

We have probably about twenty cookbooks in our kitchen, and while we don’t seem to use them as much as we’d like to, we have been making it a point more and more to flip through those pages and try new things.  One of the books we love is by local celebrity chef Ming Tsai.  If you are ever in the Boston area and have a chance, we highly recommend you stop into his restaurant, Blue Ginger.  We’ve been there a couple of times, and have nothing but the utmost praise for everything we encountered.  Just a few of the dishes I can recall off the top of my head right now are: Ginger Ale (with Ginger Candy) homemade from scratch, an incredible Osso Buco, and Chocolate Chip Green Tea Mint Ice Cream (omg).  The menu rotates and changes periodically, using what’s good and in season at the time, and everything is made in-house.  The portions are not overwhelmingly large, but nor are they not too small (they are just the right size that you can have a three course meal and be perfectly satisfied -- you will never go home hungry; and sometimes might even take a little bit of leftovers with you).  There is even an extensive gluten-free menu.  As a bonus, on any given night you can see Ming himself working in the kitchen and strolling through the dining room conversing with guests.  He even quite thoroughly enjoys autographing cookbooks for you if you so desire.  This is one down-to-earth and genuinely pleasant guy.

Today’s recipe is one of Ming’s, which we found in his book, East Meets West Cooking with Ming Tsai.  This Southwestern-style soup is ready for Autumn -- it's hearty and sweet, but still has some of the zing we love.  And it has bacon, so who can argue with that?!?  :)


Chipotle Sweet Potato Soup with Bell Pepper-Bacon Salsa

SALSA INGREDIENTS

• 4 slices of bacon
• 1 small red onion, cut into a 1/4 inch dice
• 1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and cut into a1/4 inch dice
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Juice of 1 lime

SOUP INGREDIENTS

• 5 garlic cloves, smashed
• 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh ginger
• 2 small white or yellow onions, roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon pureed chipotles in adobo
• 3/4 cup dry white wine
• 3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into a 1/2 inch dice
• 6 cups Chicken Stock or low sodium canned broth (for this particular iteration of the recipe, I used Swanson Natural Goodness 100% Fat Free 33% Less Sodium Chicken Broth)
• 6 tablespoons butter, chilled and roughly chopped
• Juice of 1/2 lime

SALSA DIRECTIONS

1. Cook the bacon until crisp.  Crumble it and set to the side.
2. Pour most of the bacon fat into a heat-proof container, leaving only enough left in the pan to coat the pan lightly.  Reserve the bacon fat.
3. Add the onion and red pepper to the same pan used for cooking the bacon, and sauté over medium heat, stirring, until brown (about 5 minutes).  Season to taste with the salt and pepper (I tend to use minimal salt, personally).
4. Add the crumbled bacon and the lime juice.  Re-season if necessary, transfer the salsa to a bowl, and set aside at room temperature.

SOUP DIRECTIONS

1. Return the reserved bacon fat to the same pan and place over medium heat. Add the garlic, ginger, onions, and brown sugar, season with the salt and pepper to taste (again, minimal salt for me), and sauté, stirring, until the vegetables are brown (about 5 minutes).
2. Stir in the chipotle puree and wine, and cook over medium heat until the mixture is reduced by about three-fourths, approximately 5 minutes.
3. Add the sweet potatoes and stock and simmer until the potatoes are very soft, 20 to 25 minutes.
4. Using a hand blender or regular blender or food processor, puree the soup mixture. Add the butter one piece at a time, blending again after each addition, to thicken the soup slightly. Stir in the lime juice and correct the seasonings.
5. Immediately ladle into bowls, spoon a portion of the salsa onto each and serve.

We got 6 fairly large servings (about 1.75 cups of soup + 4 tbsp salsa), each with:

• 284 calories
• 7 grams protein
• 26 grams carbs
• 14 grams fat
• 3 grams fiber
• 815 mg sodium

This was a recipe that I had made many months ago, but I am now realizing that we happen to have a lot of these ingredients on hand at home right now (specifically chipotles in adobo that I was wondering how we'd use up), and so I think we should make this soup again very soon!  :)