Read in Catalan

We're continuing with our series on classic Catalan dishes, with a special focus this month on four dishes typical of the holiday season. Last week we had spring chicken with dried apricots and prunes, now, Oscar Manresa brings us roast goat shoulder.

This time, Oscar takes us to Barcelona's famous Boqueria market, to his favourite butchers to ask for four cabrit shoulders. Cabrit, Catalan for kid goat, is a popular meat in Africa, Asia, South/Central America and parts of Europe, but less commonly found in the English-speaking world. Lamb makes a reasonable substitute if you can't find it. If you do find it, it's better from younger goats, from kids. Their meat is very tasty but this decreases with age.

The recipe requires just a handful of basic ingredients beyond the meat: potatoes, tomatoes and onion. The preparation is just as easy too, you can throw it together and into the oven in minutes and then leave it. Before serving though, Oscar recommends putting it right to the top of the oven to grill a bit (or broil if you're in the US) and get that colour and that slightly crispy skin, his favourite part.

Ingredients to serve 4:

4 goat shoulders
3 potatoes
1 onion
2 tomatoes
A few sprigs of rosemary
1 glass of white wine (any you have)
Drizzle of olive oil
Salt and pepper

Recipe:

  1. Finely slice the potatoes, onion and tomatoes
  2. Place them on the bottom of your baking tray
  3. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil
  4. Place the meat on top of the vegetables
  5. Put the rosemary on the meat, and again season and drizzle with oil
  6. Splash over a bit of white wine
  7. Roast for 1 hour at 180ºC/355ºF