To Roast a Goose
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Chop a few sage leaves and two onions very fine.
Mix the chopped sage leaves and onions with a good lump of butter, a teaspoonful of pepper, and two of salt.
Put the mixture into the goose.
Split the goose, lay it down, and dust it with flour.
Roast
When the goose is thoroughly hot, baste it with nice lard.
If it be a large one, it will require an hour and a half before a good clear fire.
When it is enough, dredge and baste it.
Pull out the spit.
Pour in a little boiling water.
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. See the original page.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Goose (in the method)
- The main meat, which the stuffing flavours and the roasting cooks through.
- Onions
- Add sweetness and aroma as they soften inside the goose.
- Butter (in the method)
- Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and carries flavour.
- Lard (in the method)
- Fat brushed over the skin that helps it brown and crisp.
- Flour (in the method)
- Dusted on the skin, it helps form a browned, crisp surface.
The step that matters
Basting with fat once the goose is hot. Basting spreads melted fat over the skin, which helps it brown and crisp evenly. Starting only when the goose is thoroughly hot lets the fat sear rather than sit and soak in.
“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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