Okay… Who knew that this wasn’t going to be a tech blog, but a food and philosophy blog. When I was younger - in my late teens, before going to college - I really wanted to be a chef; and spent most of my early adulthood working as a cook. Why did I end up going into tech and not culinary if I was so passionate about cooking? Because only masochists actually want to work in a professional kitchen.

So I guess it would make sense that the predominance of my post content is stuff that I cook. I love cooking. I love to scour the internet for at least 8 examples of recipes, mix the flavors in my mind, and then produce something that is different than any of them. To this end, I am going to start including recipes here if what I make turns out to be any good.

I may even go back and add recipes for things I have made; if I can remember them. As the student knows, performing recall does enhance the memory, so this exercise would be with merit.

This week I was reorganizing one of the sheds we have on our property, and came across a wonderful box. On the top, it was labeled “Dry Goods; Spices”. Why was this such a find you may ask?

For the past month I have been pondering what to do with the meat I acquired from the slaughter of little Venti the goat.

When life gives you lemons… or in this case goat. He wasn’t a very big guy, but pointless to turn a tragedy to a waste; so instead of fretting, I had been wondering what kind of delicious goat meals he should become.

When I discovered this box, I remembered that it contained a slew of indian spices. Thinking back I remembered making a quite decent masala dish about seven years ago and thought, hmm that was good, but I bet I could do better. I knew the contents of this box contained just the things I needed to make that happen.

You can see on the top there is a Masala kit. This is not part of my recipe. I will probably throw it away since it is both ancient, and a kit. With the advent of an Internet full of recipes, meal kits in my mind have been relegated to the domain of lazy chefs, bored moms, or beginners. I don’t really consider myself any of the three.

The first step in making a goat dish, is to prep the goat. I had already processed the rest of the leg for use on a later date, so this fine cut had been thawing overnight and ready to go.

Removing meat from the bone is a whole different world of cooking than opening up a package of meat from the store. It is a little time-consuming, and requires a good sharp implement. My preference for this job is my handy cleaver. It is very good at all three required actions - stripping, cutting, and chopping; plus is a lot of fun to use.

Once the meat has been removed for the bone, it is cut into pieces of under 1" in size. Any large bones should also be set aside for use - the marrow is a huge flavor and nutrition enhancer.

The spice profile for this dish is what you would expect for any curry, just that the predominant spice for this happens to be garam masala. You don’t just add the spices into a broth either, instead…

Step 1, take your goat meat, and rub with the spices. Get a good coating over all the meat. Use all the spices if you can, but if you have any leftover toss in to your pot.

Step 2, take a pan, heat with your oil/butter, and over medium heat get a good sear on the meat. As you finish each batch, dump the meat into the pot and add fresh oil. The point isn’t to cook the meat, but to sear the spices on.

Step 3, Put the onion, garlic, and ginger in the pan with oil. Once caramelized, dump into the pot. Deglaze the pan with water when complete, dump into pot.

Step 4, Add tomatoes and the rest of the spices. Turn Instant Pot on Pressure Cook for 40 minutes. Once cooking is complete, leave for 20 more minutes under pressure before venting. In general, you want this to cook for about an hour. Leaving it under pressure but on just warm finishes the onions off without making the meat tough.

Step 5, Vent but leave on keep warm, remove lid, add heavy whipping cream until it is the right color. Put the lid back on for 10 minutes.

Step 6, Remove bones, transfer to secondary dish, and make rice. I prefer calrose or jasmine.

That’s it. It is really simple, and very good. I was amazed at how tender all of the meat was. This was definitely a winning dish. Not a single complaint from any of the picky eaters or the indian-food disliking contingent. I was a little taken aback, as I had to give half of my future lunch away when people called for seconds.