What it is
Shacha goat (沙茶羊肉) is thinly sliced goat stir-fried in a wok with shacha sauce (沙茶醬), a savoury, slightly spicy paste of oil, garlic, shallot, chilli, dried fish and dried shrimp. Most of the 羊肉 eaten in Taiwan is imported sheep meat, but the island's own herds are mainly goats, sold with the skin on.
Where it came from
Shacha takes its name from satay: 沙茶 is read sa-te in Teochew and Hokkien. Min Nan people returning from Southeast Asia brought satay sauce home, and over time it became a sauce built on dried seafood, quite unlike the peanut satay of Malaysia and Indonesia. Teochew migrants brought it to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War. In 1958 Liu Lai-chin, a Tainan noodle-shop owner from Chaoshan, launched the Bullhead (牛頭牌) brand.
The goat has its own history. Taiwan's black goat is not native; it was brought from mainland China in the 17th century, after Koxinga took the island. Before 1945 goat was mostly sold from stalls, often as slices quick-fried with basil, shacha, chilli bean paste and rice wine, which also mask its strong smell. Gangshan is credited with Taiwan's first goat brand: in 1926 Yu Shui-sheng (余水勝) is said to have hawked goat from a carrying pole around the old market, founding what became Da Xin Goat (大新羊肉).
How it is made
The goat is sliced thin and stir-fried fast in a hot wok with shacha sauce. Cooks often add Thai basil (九層塔), chilli bean paste (豆瓣醬) and rice wine. Gangshan restaurants such as Joes use goat slaughtered the same day. At Joes, family members take turns at the stove and no outside chefs are hired.
How to eat it
Order it with rice as one plate in a goat meal. Goat restaurants pair stir-fries with soups: at Joes, the other recommended dishes are a broth of goat bones and Chinese herbs, eaten with offal, and goat stir-fried with bitter melon. Goat hotpot (羊肉爐), which spread across southern Taiwan from the 1970s, is the other big goat dish.
Around Taiwan
- Kaohsiung
- Goats were traditionally raised on the poor land of northern Kaohsiung, and Gangshan grew into the region's centre for goat trading, slaughter and eating, with dozens of goat restaurants. Joes (舊市羊肉) began as a stall in the Gangshan market in the mid-1950s, and shacha goat is its signature.
- North
- In 1989 a restaurant called 下港ㄟ ("from down south") brought a Fengshan goat soup to Taipei and made it popular there alongside goat stir-fries.
