Jamaican Goat Curry

*Disclosure: Whilst this product was received as a gift, I personally choose whether or not to review any products on this site and any opinions given are reflective of my opinions of the product rather than those of the company.

Jamaican Goat Curry

I’m generally pretty careful when offered a product to review. I try not to do too many and only agree to review it if I think it is something that I would recommend you buy. I was therefore interested when I received a sample of product from ‘The Ja Joint‘, a small online start up selling Jamaican sauces and spices. I received a pack called ‘THE 4 BAD BWOYZ!’ consisting of a Habanero Hot Sauce, Jamaican BBQ sauce, Jamaican Jerk Seasoning and a Jamaican Curry Spice Blend. The Ja Joint describe themselves as ‘passionate about giving all Australians easy access to authentic Jamaican food’ and after cooking the Curry, I would have to agree. Having a half Indian wife means we cook a lot of curry but I have to admit that apart from a few experiences of Jamaican food in the UK, I am not overly familiar with the cuisine but have enjoyed the experience every time. Given that it was the middle of winter by the time I got around to trying the product, I thought I would start with the Curry. If I hadn’t had a recipe available, I probably would have still made it from Goat but made it in a more ‘Indian’ style but a blog post here on The Ja Joint website helped point me in the right direction.

There are a number of things I like about this kit. Firstly, if you cook curry regularly, you have to keep a whole manner of small packets (or large jars!) of various spices and even more sometimes depending on your repertoire of dishes. The Ja Joint uses quality spices and mixes the blend so that you don’t have to worry about making the blend OR keeping 10 or 15 little packets of spices in your kitchen which if you don’t use will eventually lose their freshness. Secondly, whilst you are using someone else’s proprietary blend, all the other ingredients are your own which means that you can make something of the highest quality or on a budget depending on how much you want to do and how deep your pockets are. Finally, depending on your own personal preference for heat, you can control how hot the dish is and tweak any other elements to your own taste.

The recipe below is the one I used (from their website) and makes a dish which is pretty hot (Habanero Chillies are one of the hottest varieties of Chilli although a Chilli afficiando will tell you about Ghost Chillies and other varieties I don’t know about which will blow Habaneros out of the water). The spice mix on its own still has a bit of kick and when using, you want to ensure that you don’t burn it in the first cooking stage otherwise you risk your dish becoming bitter.

One thing I really like about this recipe is that the addition of Carrots and Potatoes means that if you want, you can serve it on its own and it will be in itself a complete dish. However, you can serve it with plain rice or traditional Jamaican ‘Rice and Peas’ if you so desire.

If you’re interested in Jamaican food, I recommend that you try this product. The recipe below is easy to follow and worked well for me. You can buy it from their website here: http://www.thejajoint.com.au

Check it out as I think you will enjoy it and keep an eye out for when I try their jerk seasoning and BBQ sauce.

Ingredients

* 1 kilo of good quality goat pieces with the bone
* 2 onions
* 8 cloves of garlic
* 2 spring onions
* 2 large carrots
* 2 potatoes
* 1 tomato
* 2 heaped tbl grated fresh ginger
* 3 tbl of our Ja Joint Jamaican Curry Powder
* 1 tbl dried/fresh thyme
* 1- 2 habaneros whole
* 1 knob of butter
* 1 cup of coconut cream (Kara is the best)
* Water
* Seasoning

Method

1. Fry off onion, garlic, ginger, spring onions and add salt
2. Fry of our Authentic Jamaican Curry powder with all the other ingredients for 3-4 min
3. Add goat pieces to the pan, brown off and combine all flavours together
4. Add carrots & tomato, water so it just covers the meat and the coconut cream
5. Add whole habanero/s If you like spicy add 1 If you like really spicy add 2 habaneros
6. Bring to boil, add salt and pepper then simmer for 2 hours uncovered
7. Cut potato into cubes, add to pot and add butter and fresh Thyme
8. Let curry cook for a further 30min to a hour