Why it works: Potato and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓
Roast Goose
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the goose
Singe the goose.
Remove pin feathers.
Wash the goose in warm soapy water, then rinse in cold water.
Dry inside and out.
Stuff the goose with potato stuffing. Sew it up and truss it.
Roast
Place the goose on a rack in a roasting pan.
Cover the breast with slices of fat salt pork.
Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1 hour.
Remove the pan from the oven and pour off excess fat.
Dredge the goose with flour.
When the flour is brown, add a little hot water.
Baste often.
Continue cooking until the goose is brown and tender.
Make gravy and serve
Make gravy from some of the fat in the pan, flour, and hot water.
Season to taste.
Serve with apple sauce.
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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Potato + porktop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,668 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Pork + appletop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,581 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
-
Potato + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together603 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,078 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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, which becomes tender and browned through long roasting.
- Fat salt pork
- Covers the breast, basting the meat with melting fat and keeping it moist.
- Flour
- Browns on the goose and thickens the pan drippings into gravy.
- Potato stuffing
- Fills the cavity, adding starch and moisture that flavour the bird as it cooks.
The step that matters
Adding hot water after the flour browns. Water added to browned flour and fat lifts the browned bits into the pan for gravy. Adding it too early, or before the flour browns, can leave the gravy pale and pasty.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, pork, flour, sauce):
- Avocadofits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pork, flour, sauce. 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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