Robert Irvine Uses A Goat Head To Make Soup
GOAT #GOAT
If you follow celebrity chef Robert Irvine on Twitter, you’re not likely to see anything too shocking. On any given day he’s probably not going to break out into an Alton Brown-style rant or start spouting off on political issues a la Padma Lakshmi. Instead, many of his tweets are meant to promote his shows and his products, while he may even share a recipe or two. He will also often reply to his fans, perhaps giving them an honest answer to their question or comment or even offering a little “tough love” life advice.
During one recent fan interaction, however, Irvine — and all of his Twitter followers, as well — may have gotten a bit more than they bargained for in the form of a photo of a just-butchered (and thankfully plastic-bagged) goat. The Irvine fan who posted the photo tagged the chef in his caption, tweeting “I just finished breaking down a goat … now what do I with all this???” Irvine’s sage advice was to “use the head for soup.”
Irvine unfortunately failed to follow up with a goat head soup recipe, nor have we been able to find one in his repertoire. Goat meat isn’t anything unusual — while Irvine’s fellow celeb chef Michael Symon considers it sadly underrated in the U.S., it’s quite common in Latin America, Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa. While traditional dishes specifically involving a goat’s head do seem to be few and far between, we were diligent in our research and managed to uncover two different types of soup made with this meat.
In Kabul, kalah wa pacha often includes goat legs and feet as well as heads, brains, and tongues. Journalist Ruchi Kumar shared an account on My Recipes of traveling to Kabul to visit a restaurant specializing in this soup, and she spoke with a local wrestler who’s a big fan of the stuff. As he said, “It’s an extremely rich source of energy, and can keep me going for hours.” In Jamaica, Atlas Obscura says that not only the goat’s head and feet but also entrails and testicles go into a dish called mannish water. As to why it bears that name, the soup is only made by male cooks, and the meat must come from male goats. What’s more, it’s apparently meant to be a soupy alternative to Viagra. Not to mention, all the habaneros in the soup will probably put hair on your chest. We’re not sure if Irvine’s ever tried mannish water, but it sounds right up Andrew Zimmern’s alley.
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