AIP Indian-style goat curry with beet-carrot sauce, cinnamon, cloves, and turmeric - coconut-free, nightshade-free

Bone-in goat is not something you grab at a regular grocery store on a Tuesday. Finding it takes an extra stop, maybe a call to a butcher or a halal market, and then a 2-hour braise on top of that. This is a weekend dish, not a weeknight one, and it is worth setting aside the time for.

The sauce here is beet and carrot, blended smooth with onion, garlic, and ginger, standing in for the tomato base this style of curry usually leans on. It comes out a deep, earthy red, and it carries the dish the way tomato would in a version of this curry you cannot make right now, without ever feeling like a stand-in.

A 2-hour braise takes patience, not efficiency. Bone-in goat, cooked slowly, releases glycine and collagen into the sauce, and both matter directly to the gut-lining repair the elimination phase is aiming for.

Save the bones after you eat and start a broth with them. That second use is a small, practical way of honoring what the animal gave, and it means nothing here goes to waste.

Ingredients

For the sauce:

• 2 tablespoons avocado oil
• 2 red onions, peeled and thinly sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• one thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, roughly chopped
• good pinch of sea salt
• 1 small carrot, coarsely grated
• 1 small beet (cooked), roughly chopped
• pinch of ground cinnamon
• pinch of ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 500 ml (about 2 cups) beef bone broth or beef stock (nightshade-free, seed-spice-free)

For the goat:

• 1 tablespoon avocado oil
• 1 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 kg (about 2.2 lbs) stewing goat, bone-in preferred (lamb shoulder or beef stew cuts work well too)
• fresh cilantro leaves, to serve

Method

Make the sauce first. Warm the avocado oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sliced onions with a pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until they soften and begin to turn golden - about 10 to 12 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger and stir for another 2 minutes. Add the grated carrot and chopped cooked beet. Stir in the cinnamon, cloves, and turmeric. Cook for another 3 to 4 minutes until the vegetables are soft and the spices are fragrant.

Pour in the bone broth. Stir to combine, then transfer the mixture to a blender (or use an immersion blender in the pan). Blend until completely smooth. Taste and adjust salt.

In the same skillet (no need to wash it), warm another tablespoon of avocado oil over medium-high heat. Brown the goat pieces in batches - you want some color on the outside, not just gray steamed meat. This takes about 3 to 4 minutes per batch. Set the browned meat aside. Add the sliced red onion to the pan and cook for 5 minutes until softened and starting to color.

Transfer the browned goat and onion to the slow cooker. Pour the blended sauce over everything. Set the slow cooker to low and cook for 6 to 8 hours, or on high for 3 to 4 hours, until the meat is very tender and pulling away from the bone. Alternatively, cook uncovered in a heavy pot in a 325°F oven for about 2 hours.

Serve over cauliflower rice with a generous amount of fresh cilantro.

Instant Pot variation

Brown the meat using the Saute function in the Instant Pot, working in batches. Remove and set aside. Saute the onion for the curry in the same pot, then add the sauce (blend it ahead of time as described above) and the browned meat. Seal the lid and cook on high pressure for 35 to 40 minutes for bone-in goat, or 25 minutes for boneless. Allow the pressure to release naturally for 15 minutes before venting. The sauce will be thinner than the slow-cooker version; if you want a thicker consistency, switch to Saute mode after pressure-cooking and reduce uncovered for 10 minutes.

*Adapted from comfortbites.co.uk*