Saturday, February 20, 2010

Feral goat

My friend Stephen has been out hunting again, and brought back feral nanny-goat. He brought around a leg for me to turn into salami, and a gift of a backstrap. The leg is minced up, mixed with salt, pepper, and garlic, curing in the fridge. I'll stuff it into casings on Tuesday night.

I decided to cook the backstrap sous vide, seeing as I had the waterbath full to make feta this morning.

Firstly I cut it in half and removed all fat and silverskin. Here the front half is ready to go, the back half still needs trimming:


I salted them both, and sealed them in separate bags:


This is what it looks like after 1.5 hours at 60°C:


That one's gone into the fridge in its bag. Here's the other one released from its plastic:


Doesn't look terribly appetizing, does it?

But here it is after being seared for not very long on each side in a smoking hot pan:


Just look at those juicy tender slices! It's gorgeous and I've been snacking on it all afternoon.

Saturday is my bread day - I make a (very) small loaf of bread in the morning and eat it during the day, along with other snacky things, without having any proper meals at all. The other half of the backstrap will become part of a real meal though. Garlic mash! Garlic kumara mash, even, and with runner beans from the garden.

2 comments:

  1. Wow, I envy you your vac packer! I fell in love with them working in restaurants but I've never come across anyone with their very own before!

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  2. They're quite common - they don't draw a huge vacuum, but enough. A couple of companies make them, mine's one of these http://www.queenb.co.nz/shop/sunbeam+small+appliances/foodsavers/Sunbeam+Foodsaver+VAC420.html

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