This Weekend’s New Crazy Recipe August 13, 2008
Posted by Janet in : SANDWHICH musings , trackbackMoroccan Stewed Goat Meat
with Dried Fruit and Almond Chutney
This Thursday, Friday and Saturday only!!!
$11.99
Get it while it lasts…. And if you have the patience for the story behind it, read on:
Hich Has Gone Crazy Again: The Goat Story
Not that any of us around here maintains a steady level of sanity, but this time he has really gone for the gold, so to speak.
He decided to cook a goat here at the restaurant. A whole goat. And he decided to make the spices it would be cooked with.
Thinking about the impending goat purchase, Hich got to thinking about Ras el Hanout, which is a phrase in Arabic that refers to the “best of the best” that a spice vendor can offer. Ras el Hanout is a spice blend that varies from country to country, region to region, and most definitely from vendor to vendor within a single city. Moroccan Ras el Hanout is very special.
Ras el Hanout
As some of you know, Hich has the slight OCD thing of needing to do everything, everything, everything from scratch. You can buy various Ras el Hanout blends on the internet, but who knows if they’d be any good? So as he does, Hich set about to make his own blend – from cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, black pepper, juniper berries, allspice, fennel, paprika, cayenne, turmeric, ginger and nutmeg. There is some toasting of some of the spices and a lot of grinding of all of it. I just smelled some in a bowl. Wow….
Then he had to procure a goat.
He made arrangements between a local goat farmer and a Halal butcher in Chatham County. The practice of getting a whole animal to consume is not uncommon in the world, and now top restauranteurs are following suit, because it allows you to offer incredibly fresh meat…and with meat, freshness is almost the same thing as deliciousness. In Hich’s native Morocco, when a whole animal is purchased, the entire animal is then consumed, so there is no waste. Lest anyone get queasy, if you’re wondering what happened to the legs and the head and other delicacies, Hich is gonna eat those up at his house… At Sandwhich, all we’ll be serving is the “regular” meat.
Halal
Halal is the Islamic designation for meat and certain other types of food that have been handled according to strict provisions humane treatment of the animal, humane slaughter, and sanitary practices at the slaughterhouse and at the butcher. There is a long list of provisions I won’t bore you with, but suffice it to say that when Halal is practiced on a small scale, it is exemplary of the most humane and the cleanest ways to handle animals and meat. (As with anything, Halal can also be practiced on a large scale, and then it changes, sometimes a little bit, sometimes a lot).
Winding Around to the Moral of the Story
It makes no sense at all for the chef at a sandwich shop to go to Chatham County and buy an entire goat to serve at the restaurant. It makes no sense at all to go obsessing over obscure spice mixtures. Slop some mayonnaise on some bread, put a piece of ham in there, stab it with a toothpick and sell it, right? Right? Yes, right! And so the moral of the story is that sometimes it makes a certain kind of sense to do things the wrong way. Here at Sandwhich, we pride ourselves on doing everything wrong.
We hope to see you soon! Thank you for your friendship, enthusiasm and the continued support of SANDWHICH!
Janet, Hich and staff
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