Grassfed goat is back in stock + lemon herb goat meatball recipe

Recently on our blog we’ve written about the power of browsing and land clearing through small ruminant animals. Meanwhile, grassfed goat has been out of stock in our online store for a while. We’ve been able to enjoy having our goats on the farm, but haven’t been able to share their goodness with you. Today we’re excited to have grassfed goat back in stock for our online shoppers, and to share Chef Reid’s delicious lemon herb goat meatball recipe!

Goat is the most widely consumed meat in the world, but we have less experience eating it here in the U.S. The tender, flavorful protein tastes similar to beef, but is a bit sweeter and slightly earthy. A great way to introduce goat to people for the first time is by making familiar foods like meatballs. This recipe is very easy to make, and takes just 15 minutes. Give our grassfed goat a try and let us know what you think!

Ingredients
1 pound White Oak Pastures ground goat
Handful of parsley, finely chopped
Handful of green onions, finely chopped
Handful of rosemary, finely chopped
1 egg
1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 tbsp. breadcrumbs
Juice of half a lemon
Dash of salt and pepper

Preparation
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Add all ingredients to a bowl and mix by hand. Form mixture into approximately 2 ounce meatballs and place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake at 425 degrees for 7 minutes.

We’ve got guts. Lots and lots of guts.

“In nature there is no waste.” -Dr. George Washington Carver

A byproduct of our red meat abattoir is a lot of intestines and guts. It’s not as much waste as there would be in an industrial plant that processes up to 100 times more animals than we do, but it’s still a lot. Most people would throw all those intestines away. We’re full-circle at White Oak Pastures, so we feed ‘em to black soldier fly larvae, which our poultry devour, and then fertilize our land with their feces. Win win win win win!

We breed native black soldier flies inside an old grain silo that stored corn for the cattle before we transitioned to grassfed. The flies lay their eggs here, and then we move the eggs into large grey tubs where they hatch. Interesting fact: adult black soldier flies don’t eat, or even have functioning mouths; they spend their short 5-8 day lifespan searching for a mate and reproducing.

Their larvae, however, eat any and all organic material. We take the intestines from our abattoir and feed them to the black soldier fly larvae (see the larvae in action here). They eat and grow, and when they’re ready to pupate, they self-harvest by crawling up the ramps on the sides of the tub and dropping into a bucket.

The larvae serve two really important purposes: eating up that organic material from our red meat abattoir, and producing a protein- and fat-rich feed source that we use to supplement the diets of our pastured poultry. Today’s chickens evolved from jungle fowl in Southeastern Asia, and they are naturally omnivorous, hunting and foraging for bugs, grubs, and even small reptiles and mammals. We strive to emulate nature at White Oak Pastures, and with our black soldier fly program we go to great lengths to provide our poultry a very natural feed supplement.

They say the early bird gets the worm, not the corn and soy mix. Mother Nature has some really cool ways of doing things, when we work with her.

A simple matter of life and death

Most people don’t like to think about the slaughter and processing of food animals, in favor of the magical leap from pasture to plate. But when you feel the way we do about our animals and you interact with them on a daily basis, you think about it a lot. In fact, how we process our animals gets to the core of what we’re about, and what we’re not.

We’re not industrial commodity livestock production. We’re focused on the relationship we have with our animals; the ones born on our land, grazed on our lush pastures, grassfed and grown into the naturally healthy animals they were intended to be.

Given half a chance, nature does her job extremely well. Working with nature, we give our animals what we believe is the best life possible – which includes honoring them with a humane and dignified death.

Our red meat abattoir is one of only two on-farm USDA-inspected processing facilities in the nation. Situated in one of the pastures our cows have roamed their entire lives, there’s no stressful transportation issue. Their hooves never touch concrete until their last step.

The abattoir design is by Temple Grandin, a renowned expert on humane animal handling, and was designed to keep our animals at ease. For instance, the structure of the walkways minimize shadows because shadows frighten cows. Our abattoir is Animal Welfare Approved, an accreditation that reflects the highest animal welfare standards. This is important and good to know because when you choose your food, you’re also choosing how the animals are treated.

At White Oak Pastures, the compassionate treatment of animals doesn’t end with the end of their lives.

How to roast a whole pastured chicken or guinea like a pro

White Oak Pastures’ chickens and guineas live unconfined on pasture, hunting, pecking, scratching, and dust bathing. This leads to stronger, healthier, and in our opinion, tastier birds. It also means these birds use their muscles, and we need to take this into consideration when cooking a pasture raised animal. Apply some of the same principles we use when preparing grassfed beef, such as marinating or seasoning one to two days in advance to help tenderize those more active muscle fibers.

One of the easiest ways to cook a chicken or guinea is by slow roasting it. Cooking poultry with the bone in adds more flavor and nutrition to the meat and the broth you have left. We recommend the following recipe when roasting our pastured chickens and guineas.

Ingredients

1 White Oak Pastures small, medium or large chicken, or guinea

1 large onion – large chop

3 carrots – large chop

4 celery stalks – large chop

1 bay leaf

1 cup water

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup kosher salt

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tsp chili powder

½ tsp white pepper

1 tsp onion powder

¼ tsp allspice

2 tbsp dried oregano

Preparation

Place the onion, carrot celery, bay leaf and chicken or guinea in a roasting pan deep enough to cover with foil or a lid if using a Dutch oven or cast iron. Mix all spices and herbs together (kosher salt through oregano) in a bowl. You may have more than you need, but this is a good all-purpose seasoning to keep on hand. Pour the olive oil over the chicken and then rub the seasoning over the bird, making sure to get it under the skin and in the cavity so the flavors can penetrate the meat.

At this point, if you can let it marinate for about a day, it will help tenderize the bird as the salt begins to break down tougher muscle fibers. If you don’t have a day, just let it sit out covered at room temperature for about an hour before you put it in the oven.

Preheat oven to 325F. Add the 1 cup of water to the roasting pan. Cover with a lid or foil and place in middle rack of your oven. Roast a small chicken for 90-120 minutes; a medium chicken or a guinea for 140 minutes; and a large chicken for 140-170 minutes. Remove lid or foil. Caution: there will be hot steam, so be careful when removing the lid. Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes. Once the bird has cooled enough to handle, remove the meat and use in your favorite chicken salad recipe or anything else you’d like. Make sure you save the stock from the pan, as it’s a great base for soup and is highly nutritious.

Q&A with Lisa Brown, White Oak Pastures’ Poultry Plant Manager

We are excited to introduce you to a special member of the White Oak Pastures family, Lisa Brown. Lisa started working with us in 2012, when we were still beginning to learn the poultry business. She started out in the processing side of our on-farm poultry abattoir as a feather plucker, and then took the initiative to learn all aspects of the plant. Four years later, Lisa is our Poultry Plant Manager, leading the day-to-day operations and overseeing our 10 artisan butchers in our abattoir. We are proud to continue learning and growing together with Lisa.

Q: You carry a lot of responsibility, being the one to ensure our birds have a humane, dignified death. What does that mean to you?

A: Animal welfare is very important, so when it comes to processing the birds, we do it in a clean and organized order. We take pride in treating our animals with respect.

Q: What is the most satisfying part of your job?

A: At the end of the shift each day because I know we got the job done.

Q: What was your most embarrassing moment at work?

A: One day at work, I went to the dining Pavilion to get a cup of coffee while I was on my break. As I got my coffee, I began to walk back to my office, when all of a sudden I slid across some gravel rocks and couldn’t stop myself. I fell directly on my behind, but I still was holding onto my cup of coffee!

Q: What is your favorite meal to cook at home?

A: I love the pastured chicken breast and yellow rice. I marinate the chicken breast in some chicken broth. I let it sit overnight and the next day, then I take it out and bake it. I also boil my rice with butter.

Q: What is your favorite hobby outside of work?

A: Fishing with my family.

Q: Choose one word to describe White Oak Pastures.

A: Amazing

How to buy grassfed and pastured meat in bulk

It used to be very common to buy a whole, half, or quarter of an animal from a farmer you know and trust, and then enjoy having a convenient, steady supply of protein in the freezer. This tradition of buying meat in bulk is making a comeback, and we’d like to make the process a little less intimidating and mysterious, and encourage you to give it a try.

One of the advantages of buying in bulk is the cost savings. Ethically-raised protein costs more to produce than factory farmed protein, but we are able to charge less for whole animals because we save money on packaging, marketing, and distribution. Here is how the cost breaks down: a whole cow is about 360 pounds of meat. At $2,799 for the cow, the cost comes out to $7.78 per pound, which is less than the cost of a pound of ground beef purchased by itself. When you buy the whole cow, you also get filets, ribeyes, strip steaks and more, all for $7.78 per pound.

Buying in bulk will also allow you to develop a deeper connection with your food and where it comes from. When you arrange to pick up your order on the farm, it is a great opportunity to schedule a tour to see where your animal was raised and processed. You’ll honor that animal every time you eat it, and take pride in learning how to prepare cuts of meat you may not have tried before.

You can purchase a quarter of a cow, an eighth of a cow, and a side (half) of lamb through our online store, where we also list which cuts come with each option. We will ship it to you in a cooler with dry ice, or you can pick up your order on the farm.

Whole and half cows and hogs can be purchased by filling out our order form and emailing or faxing it back to us. You have the option to choose the specifications of how the animal is butchered, and you can also choose to include the bones, fat, or offal. Shipping a whole or half cow or hog would be quite expensive, so we ask you to pick it up on the farm. Once you get it home, a whole cow will require a chest freezer totaling 14 cu. ft.; a side of beef or a whole hog should easily fit into a 7 cu. ft. model; and a side of pork will need about 3.5 cu. ft. of freezer space.

If you have any questions we haven’t answered here, please contact us at 229-641-2081 or info@whiteoakpastures.com.