Goat is an everyday meat of the Sahrawi and Saharan peoples, roasted or stewed with cumin and garlic over an open fire. Hardy and herd-raised, it is the meat the desert can sustain.
Pull a piece of roast goat and it is deeply browned and crisp outside, tender and faintly sweet within, the cumin and garlic crusting the surface, a clean leanness beneath. Bite: savory and aromatic, the goat richer than lamb and gamier, the spice rub fragrant. The festive roast of the desert, carved and shared with bread.
A cumin-garlic rub and a marinade season the lean goat and help it brown; slow roasting over steady coals renders what fat there is and breaks down the tougher muscle to tenderness while crisping the exterior. Basting with the juices keeps the lean meat from drying.
Variations
Whole-roasted (mechoui). With dates. With harissa. Stewed instead. With seven spices. With smen butter.
On the Palate
Where Sahrawi Roast Goat sits in the Sahrawi flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6How it's made
8 steps · 30 min active + 2 hours waiting
- 18 min
Rub a bone-in goat shoulder or leg with cumin, crushed garlic, salt, and oil.
- 260 min
Let it marinate at least an hour.
- 38 min
Build a steady bed of coals (or heat an oven to medium).
- 410 min
Roast the goat slowly, turning, basting with its juices.
Watch outBaste with the pan juices each time you turn it — lean goat has little fat of its own and dries out if you let the surface go bone-dry.
- 5110 min
Cook about 2 hours until deeply browned and tender at the bone.
Watch outIt's ready when the crust is deep brown and the meat gives easily at the bone — undercooked lean goat stays tough and chewy.
- 610 min
Rest the meat 10 min.
Watch outRest it a full 10 minutes before carving so the juices settle back in — cut it straight away and they run out onto the board.
- 74 min
Carve into pieces.
- 82 min
Serve with bread or couscous and a little broth.
