Lively, celebratory comfort food: Nigerian Goat Stew

This flavorful, colorful, spicy goat stew is a traditional meal across West Africa. Recipe below.

GOAT STEW IS EATEN ACROSS WEST AFRICA, often shared as a holiday or celebratory dish. We recently discovered this delightful meal at a Nigerian food truck in Detroit, Fork in Nigeria.

Immigrant owner and chef Prej Iroegbu started Fork in Nigeria to share food from his homeland. From staples like fufu and jollof rice to other delicacies like suya, chicken, plantain—and this goat stew. Fork in Nigeria now has food trucks in Detroit and Columbus, Ohio.

There are many variations on goat stew in West Africa, but most involve boiling the goat meat first, then frying it and cooking it in a puree of tomatoes, onions, garlic, a habanero pepper, thyme, curry powder and chicken bouillion powder. The Nigerian version includes red bell pepper. Most versions are served with cooked rice or fried plantains.

Getting goat meat may be the biggest challenge for making this dish. If you live where there is a significant Middle Eastern population, you may find it in their markets. Stores serving a Mexican population are another possibility. If you can’t find it, you can substitute lamb or mutton.

This dish is so flavorful! And colorful and, well, celebratory. We hope you give it a try.

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Nigerian Goat Stew

This flavorful, colorful, spicy goat stew is a traditional meal across West Africa.

Course Stew

Cuisine African

Servings 2 to 3

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 pounds bone-in goat meat, cut into large chunks (see Kitchen Notes)
• 2 cups chopped onions (2 or 3 onions)
• 1-1/2 teaspoons Diamond kosher salt (use about 1 teaspoon if using Morton)
• 3 plum tomatoes, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 habanero pepper, chopped (see Kitchen Notes)
• olive oil
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon chicken bouillon powder
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme (or 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves)
• cooked rice for serving

Instructions

• Combine goat meat, 1/2 cup chopped onions and 1 teaspoon salt in a medium pot. Add enough water to cover the meat and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. You may need to skim off some foam with a spoon when it starts boiling. Reduce heat to medium, cover the pot and cook the meat, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour (or longer, if needed) until meat is tender.
• Using a slotted spoon, transfer meat to a bowl and reserve the stock. You can do this a day or 2 ahead, refrigerating the meat and stock. Bring the meat to room temperature when you’re ready to cook the stew.
• Meanwhile, combine the tomatoes, garlic, about 2/3 of the bell pepper, habanero and 1 cup of onions in a food processor or blender (we recommend the former). Blend until smooth and set aside.
• Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large, high-sided skillet over medium-high heat. Transfer the boiled goat to the pan and brown on all sides, 3 or so minutes per side. Return meat to the bowl when done.
• Reduce heat to medium and add 2 more tablespoons of oil to the skillet. Add the remaining 1/2 cup onions and bell pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 3 minutes. Add tomato paste and cook, stirring often, about 5 minutes.
• Add the tomato-pepper puree and stir to combine. Stir in the bouillon powder, curry powder, thyme and 1/2 teaspoon salt, and cook for 3 minutes. Add the goat meat and 1/2 cup of the reserved broth (save the rest for another use), and stir to combine. Cover and simmer over low heat until the stew thicken, about 10 minutes.
• Taste and adjust seasoning with salt, if needed. Serve with rice.

Kitchen Notes

Getting your goat (meat). Finding goat meat can be a bit of a challenge. If you live where there is a significant Middle Eastern population, you may find it in their markets. Stores serving a Mexican population are another possibility. If you can't find it, you can substitute lamb or mutton.

If you use lamb, do boil it. We don’t normally boil lamb when we’re making a lamb stew, but in Nigerian kitchens, almost all meat is boiled before cooking it in other ways. It will also give you lamb stock to add to the stew.

Regulating the habanero heat. Habanero peppers do pack some heat. We used the whole pepper, seeds and all, and the stew was spicy. But eating it with rice toned it down to a pleasantly fiery level for our taste buds. If you don’t like heat, remove the seeds and ribs from the pepper, or use a less hot jalapeño pepper. You can also remove the seeds from that. Or skip the hot pepper. But it is traditional and we like what it adds.