Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Roast Goose
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the goose
Pick the goose.
Draw the goose.
Singe the goose.
Stuff the goose.
Truss the goose for roasting.
Make the stuffing
Blanch the sliced onions and sage leaves in boiling water for 5 minutes.
Drain the blanched onions and sage leaves.
Chop the drained onions and sage leaves finely.
Melt the butter in a stewpan.
Add the chopped onions and sage to the melted butter.
Add a pinch of salt to the mixture.
Add a pinch of pepper to the mixture.
Simmer the mixture for 10 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon.
Add a handful of bread crumbs.
Stir the mixture for 2 more minutes.
Roast and serve
Roast the goose before a nice even fire for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Sprinkle the goose with a little coarse sea salt.
Remove the string after roasting.
Strain and skim the fat from the gravy.
Pour the strained gravy around the goose on the dish.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,388 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
-
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,628 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Goose
- Provides the main meat and rendered fat that bastes the bird as it roasts.
- Sage leaves
- Adds a sharp, aromatic herbal flavour to the onion stuffing.
- Onions
- Soften when blanched and simmered, adding sweetness and moisture to the stuffing.
- Bread crumbs
- Soak up butter and onion juices, binding and thickening the stuffing.
- Butter
- Carries the aromatics and adds richness to the stuffing.
The step that matters
Simmer the stuffing mixture. Simmering for 10 minutes with stirring cooks off excess moisture from the onions and sage, so the bread crumbs can absorb the butter and the stuffing holds together instead of turning wet.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, butter, pepper, bread):
- Capsicumfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Carrotfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sage, butter, pepper, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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