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Roast Goose, Giblet Gravy

Roast goose served with a giblet gravy and garnished with watercress and cranberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Watercress and potato work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 170 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Roast Goose, Giblet Gravy

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the goose

  1. Singe the goose.

  2. Remove pin feathers from the goose.

  3. Wash the goose.

  4. Scrub the goose in hot soapy water.

  5. Draw the goose.

  6. Wash the goose in cold water.

  7. Wipe the goose.

  8. Stuff the goose.

  9. Truss the goose.

  10. Sprinkle the goose with salt and pepper.

  11. Place the goose breast down on a rack in a dripping pan.

Roast the goose

  1. Bake the goose in a hot oven for two hours.

  2. Baste the goose every fifteen minutes with fat from the pan.

  3. Turn the goose on its back for the last fifteen minutes of cooking.

  4. Remove the goose to a hot platter.

  5. Garnish the goose with watercress and cranberries.

Make the potatoes

  1. Pass the potatoes through a potato ricer.

  2. Mix cream, melted butter, and beaten eggs into the potatoes.

  3. Season the potatoes with salt and pepper.

Make the giblet gravy

  1. Cook the giblets until tender.

  2. Drain the giblets.

  3. Reserve the stock from the giblets.

  4. Finely chop the giblets.

  5. Melt butter in a pan until browned.

  6. Add flour to the browned butter and continue browning.

  7. Gradually stir in the reserved stock until smooth.

  8. Add Madeira wine to the gravy.

  9. Season the gravy with salt and pepper.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Watercress + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Watercress + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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, whose fat bastes the bird as it roasts.
Eggs
Bind the potato mixture and add richness and structure as they set.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the mashed potatoes.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour; browning it gives the gravy a nutty aroma.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the butter and stock.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Baste the goose every fifteen minutes. Regular basting spreads rendered fat over the skin, helping it brown and crisp while keeping the surface from drying out during the long roast.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, watercress, cream, butter, egg, flour, madeira wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, watercress, cream, butter, egg, flour, madeira wine. 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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