| For more than twenty years, the central Texas town of Brady has staged the World Championship Barbecue Goat Cook-off on Labor Day weekend. Cabrito is a delicacy that has its ardent admirers--and many detractors. To those who have failed to see the merit in a crunchy yet tender piece of goat meat, the blame must be placed squarely on the way it's been cooked and on the fact that the goat you got probably wasn't a ten-to-eighteen-pound, suckling kid slaughtered at thirty to forty days of age. Older goat is often passed off as cabrito, but once they start browsing on grass, goats develop an unmistakable mutton flavor. They are also tough. The best time to get real cabrito is May through October. After October, you should be skeptical. Cooking your own cabrito can be real simple if you want to dig a hole in your backyard, as purists insist. All you need is a three-foot-deep pit with a mesquite or oak fire raging in it. Wrap a skinned cabrito in a gunny sack bound with wire and set the meat in the pit. Cover it with dirt to seal in the heat and let it cook all day. The cabrito will be smoke-seasoned and tender by nightfall. Apartment-dwellers might want to opt for the kitchen method of cooking cabrito: place half a cabrito in a roasting pan with salt, pepper, and two or three onions and baste with hot lard or shortening. Cook for an hour and 45 minutes in a 375-degree oven, turning every twenty minutes or so. Sure beats having to dig up the back yard. |
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