Oven Roast Goat Leg
We have been wanting to make this for a long time at home. I asked my husband to buy the goat leg so that I could finally test a recipe that I had saved a long time ago from Pinterest. However, he and the butcher thought to knew better and decided to cut the goat's leg into pieces. The butcher’s reasons, people always want it cut further, and in agreement, my husband thought the goat leg on its own may not fit in the oven and he and the butcher seemed to be in total agreement. So when he brought it home feeling all accomplished, I, on the other hand, was disappointed to see the package of cut pieces of the goat leg and told him it was not what I wanted, it’s not what I had saved on my photos from Pinterest, of course, he couldn’t take it back we decided to cook something else with it. This time around I gave clearer instructions that he should bring a whole goat leg, and that he should ignore any butcher’s advice whatsoever and tell them that the chef wants it whole….As usual, all meats go through the brining process, next time I will try a full wet marinade on it. I soaked the goat leg in a brine solution for about 10 hours before the roasting…
In this recipe, we break down how to roast a whole Goat leg. A common African Cuisine.
- For the brine
- 5 liters water or more
- 7 tablespoons Salt
- 2 tablespoons vinegar/lemon juice, I used red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon white pepper corns
- 3 bay leaves
- 3 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
- 1 small piece of ginger
- Rosemary twigs
- For the Rub
- 2 tablespoons mustard powder
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 tsp oregano herbs
- 1/4 tsp cloves
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp coriander
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- For the basting sauce
- Barbecue sauce
- Some oil
- Soy sauce
- Red wine vinegar
- Tarmarind juice (optional)
- 1 tsp of the rub
- Prepare your Goat leg, clean and pat dry, make very dip slits on the goat leg, then dip into the brine and soak for as long as you need, I did 10 hours, overnight is best.
- Once out of the Brine solution, place the goat leg on your working tray. Massage the meat with oil, and a bit of salt. Then take you rub and continue massaging the goat leg with it making sure all parts are coated with the rub. Inside the slits, you can place pieces of the garlic and the rosemary twigs.
- Smear some oil on top. Now prepare your baking trays. I lined mine with foil and poured some oil on it then placed my goat leg. I roughly chopped onions, eggplant and bell pepper and placed them on the side just to bring out flavor while roasting. Covered the goat leg with foil on top and into the oven it went. I cooked this for 1 hour covered, then I uncovered it while smearing the basting sauce on top. I kept turning it in intervals of 25 minutes while applying the basting sauce until we were done. I roasted at 230degrees.
- Once cooked, cover the goat leg with foil let it rest for 20 minutes before cutting it up.
- I had some tamarind sauce with me and poured this on top of the meat. Serve as you please with starch of choice, kachumbari, vegetables.
Brining makes the meat tender, the longer hours you do it the better. Depending on your oven you can cook for a longer time or a shorter time. You can skip the rub and roast it as it is, it will still be good enough.
