Goat Brisket Rice Bowl

If you can get your hands on some lamb or goat breasts, they make a great tasting, thrifty alternative  to more expensive loin chops, legs and racks. Here’s a little tutorial on one way I cook them: braised, until tender, with the meat removed and fried up into a healthy, delicious rice bowl. It’s a great lamb or goat breast recipe.

It’s easy to see why breast isn’t as popular as the luxury cuts of lamb and goat: they’re fatty, and have irregular pieces of bone. Fatty, bony hunks of meat are usually some of the best tasting cuts on the animal, but they can require some special treatment to turn them into something great. Read on and I’ll explain.

This recipe is by James Beard Award-winning Chef Alan Bergo. He’s a chef from Minnesota and author of The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora. Learn more about Chef Alan at foragerchef.com. 

Looking to buy lamb or goat online? Shepherd Song Farm: Grass to table. We raise lambs & goats traditionally, humanely and sustainably. 100% Grass Fed, Pasture Raised, Never Confined, no Hormones, Grains or Animal Byproducts. Born, raised and processed in the U.S.A. Good for you and good for the environment.

How to Cook Goat Brisket 

First, know that breast/brisket can be sold boneless of bone-in. This recipe is for bone-in breast, which takes more work than boneless. If you want to buy boneless lamb or goat brisket we sell it-supply can fluctuate so if you don’t see it send us a message. Besides the rice bowl I demonstrate here, one of the best things to make with bone in breast or brisket is breaded, fried goat brisket.

Trim the goat brisket to fit into a baking dish by cutting them in half and cracking the bone with your hand or a cleaver. Each goat breast will be about 2-3 lbs total, meaning each half is about 1.5 lbs.

Season the breasts with some salt to taste, allow to sit for 30 minutes or up to overnight, then put in a baking dish with a couple inches of water and cook at 325 for 1.5-2 hours. This is where you can really get creative with adding flavors, especially if you cure it overnight with some seasonings.

Make sure that there isn’t so much water in the baking pan that it would remove the seasoning since it can make a nice crust.

Chill the lamb breast to make it easier to handle, then cut into roughly bite-sized pieces. Cook the meat over medium high heat to crisp some of the fatty edges a bit, then serve. I really liked it as a little wild rice bowl with turnips and their greens, a little yogurt, serrano chili and basil.

The fat can be combined with water and simmered until the lard renders out. There’s a caveat though: lamb fat is strong tasting, has a kind of waxy texture, and gets very firm as it cools, it won’t be soft and mild like duck, chicken or pork fat. Sometimes I save it for baking where liquid fat can be added (rye bread), or use it for frying up some hash browns, the big prize here is the meat, but I was able to get about 3 solid cups of fat and 1/2 cup of gelatin-rich stock from each 4 lb batch of breasts I cooked.