Name: Roast Goose
Ingredients: 1 young goose (about 4 months old); 4 large onions, chopped; 10 sage leaves, chopped; ¼ pound bread crumbs; 1½ ounces butter; coarse sea salt; black pepper; 1 egg; 1 slice of pork, chopped

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

Truss the goose by cutting the neck close to the back, leaving enough skin to turn over the back.
Flatten the breast bone with a rolling pin and tie or skewer the legs and wings securely.
Stuff the goose with the onion, sage, bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, egg, and chopped pork mixture.
Sprinkle the top of the goose with salt, pepper, and flour.
Reserve the giblets to boil and chop for the gravy.

Roast

Baste the goose repeatedly while roasting.
Roast a green goose for at least 1½ hours; for an older goose, bake it in an oven with plenty of hot water in the baking pan.
Baste often with the water, and when nearly done, baste with butter and a little flour.
Bake for 3 to 4 hours.

Serve

Serve decorated with watercress and with brown giblet gravy and apple sauce.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sage + porktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,527 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Goose: Forms the main body of the dish, and its fat renders during roasting to keep the meat moist.
Bread crumbs: Absorb juices and fat in the stuffing, giving it a moist, tender texture.
Egg: Binds the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Butter: Adds fat that promotes browning and richness when basted over the goose.
Onions: Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding aroma and flavor to the stuffing.
Pork: Adds fat and savory flavor to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Roast a green goose for at least 1½ hours; for an older goose, bake it in an oven with plenty of hot water in the baking pan.. Older geese are tougher and fattier, so they need gentle, moist heat from water in the pan and slow cooking. Frequent basting keeps the skin from drying and helps it brown evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, bread, butter, pepper, egg, pork):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, bread, butter, pepper, egg, 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.