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Devilled Goose

A roasted goose stuffed with mashed potatoes and herbs, served with a vinegar and jelly sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Devilled Goose

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Plunge the goose into a pot of boiling water and let it cook for 30 minutes.

  2. Prepare the stuffing by mixing mashed potatoes, butter, onions, sage, parsley, thyme, and black pepper.

  3. Stuff the goose with the mixture and place it in a pan with the slice of fat pork and broth.

Season and roast

  1. Mix pepper vinegar, celery vinegar, mustard, and acid fruit jelly; butter the breast of the goose and pour this mixture over it.

  2. Add salt and pepper to taste, then place the goose in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Dredge the goose with flour and baste frequently until cooked through.

Serve

  1. Serve with its own gravy.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Goose
Is the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is cooked and served.
Mashed irish potatoes
Bind the stuffing and add moisture and body inside the bird.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the breast brown and stay moist.
Fat pork
Adds fat to the pan that bastes the goose and enriches the drippings.
Pepper vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that cuts the richness of the goose fat.
Acid fruit jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the savoury, fatty flavour.

The step that matters

Baste frequently until cooked through. Goose is fatty and can dry out or cook unevenly at high heat. Frequent basting with pan liquid keeps the surface moist and helps the skin brown evenly, while the fat renders out.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, sage, parsley, thyme, pepper, pork):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, sage, parsley, thyme, pepper, pork. 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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