A delicious goat stew with tender potatoes, meaty artichoke hearts, and a thick lemon sauce with fennel. A unique, Spring meat stew full of flavor!
Table Of Contents
Goat with artichokes is a traditional dish of Cretan Cuisine. This version is slightly different from the traditional one, where goat or lamb is sautéed and then cooked with the artichokes and fennel greens in a thin, oily sauce.
In this version (which I slightly altered), goat or lamb is stewed together with potatoes, artichoke hearts, fennel greens, and served with a lemony, flour-thickened sauce.
It's a great dish to serve on the Easter table instead of Roast Lamb.
Meat To Use
This goat stew is best made with a young goat (up to 6 months old) that yields tender meat. An older goat will require much more cooking time than what's stated in the recipe. So it's better to swap for lamb in that case, because it has tenderer meat than goat, no matter the age.
Or you can always use a pressure cooker to soften and tenderize goat meat. Cook the meat for 15 minutes on high, and then transfer it back to the cooking pot to proceed with the next steps of the recipe.
Meat Parts
Bone-in meat, whether it's goat or lamb, works best here. It contains collagen to make a nice and glazy sauce, and the meat is also juicier.
Ingredients
- Young goat or lamb
- Artichokes: using only the hearts, fresh or frozen. You can see how to clean artichokes in my Baked Artichokes recipe.
- Potatoes: such as Russets or Yukon Gold, which are great for stews.
- Onion
- Garlic cloves: Spring garlic is also great to use in this recipe.
- Spring onions
- Fennel greens: These are the green fronds seen on the fennel bulb. In Greece, we mostly use wild fennel greens, which have a stronger flavor. You can, however, use fresh dill in combination with some ground fennel.
- Fresh lemon juice + zest
- Olive Oil
- All-purpose flour: To thicken the sauce.
Thickening The Sauce
To thicken the sauce for this goat stew, we use flour. And to do this, you make a thick paste of olive oil and all-purpose flour in a saucepan, cook it for about 2 minutes until the flour gets toasted (not browned), and then pour in some strained stock from the pot you cook the meat in.
This thickening method is also used when making Stuffed Cabbage Rolls. Although these are also thickened with egg and lemon. If you want, you can also add eggs to thicken this sauce and turn it into an egg lemon sauce. Just follow the same steps as in Stuffed Cabbage Rolls. You might need to use some extra stock, though, like vegetable stock.
Make Ahead
You can cook the meat the previous day, or up to two days ahead, and keep it in the fridge. Then add potatoes and artichokes on the next day. Just make sure to gently reheat the meat; we don't want it to become tough.
Reheating
Reheat this goat stew over low heat on the stovetop. Since it's a flour-thickened sauce, you will need to add a splash or two of hot water or, even better, vegetable stock to it.
Serve
Serve this goat artichoke stew while it's still hot. The more it sits, the thicker the sauce will be. Add plenty of freshly ground pepper to each portion. And if you like an extra squeeze of fresh lemon when serving.
Recipe
Greek Goat Stew with Artichokes and Potatoes
Ingredients
For The Goat Stew:
- 1300 grams (2.8 pounds) goat meat bone-in you can use lamb meat instead
- olive oil
- 600 grams (8-10) artichoke hearts
- 550 grams (1.2 pounds) potatoes peeled and cut into 4 cm (1½-inch) pieces
- 150 grams (1 medium-sized) onion minced
- 3 garlic cloves finely chopped
- 2 spring onions minced
- 3 tablespoons fennel greens minced (or use dill with 1½ teaspoons ground fennel)
- 80 ml (⅓ cup) fresh lemon juice
- 750 ml (3 cups) hot water or vegetable stock
For The Lemon Sauce:
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon fennel greens or dill minced
- ⅓ lemon zested
Instructions
Make The Stew:
- Pat dry the meat and season with salt and pepper.
- Heat a good splash of olive oil in a large cooking pot.
- Saute onion and garlic until softened over moderate heat.
- Add the meat and raise the heat to medium-high.
- Cook the meat for 3 minutes, then turn. Scrape the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon. Cook the meat for another 3 minutes.
- Add the spring onions and fennel greens.
- Cook 2 minutes more. Stirring with a wooden spoon now and then.
- Pour the lemon juice and deglaze the cooking pot.
- Pour the hot water or stock and simmer covered, over low heat, for 1 to 1½ hours or until the meat is fork tender.See notes below.
- Remove the meat from the pot carefully and keep it aside, covered, to stay warm.
- Strain the stock using a fine-mesh sieve, clean the pot if needed, and transfer the stock back to the pot.
- Add the potatoes, top with the meat, and top with the artichokes. The potatoes should be fully submerged in the stock.
- Simmer covered over low heat for about 45 minutes more or until potatoes and artichokes are cooked.
- Take the pot off the heat. Tilt it a bit and remove as much sauce as possible. We need at least 2 cups of it. If there isn't enough, add some more hot water or vegetable stock.
Make The Sauce:
- Add 3 tablespoons of olive oil and 3 tablespoons of flour to a saucepan. Stir with a whisk to combine.
- Cook the flour mixture over moderate heat until the flour starts to look toasted and smell nutty. Stir constantly with a whisk, don't let it burn. Turn the heat to low.
- Pour in the strained stock and cook until thickened
- Stir in the fennel greens, lemon juice, and zest.
- Pour the sauce back into the cooking pot, tilt and shake the pot to spread the sauce evenly.
- Serve warm with plenty of freshly ground pepper on top!
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