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Goose Soup

A hearty soup made by boiling a goose with ham, onion, carrot, celery, cayenne pepper, and sherry or Madeira.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Goose Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the goose

  1. Boil the goose in stock instead of water.

  2. Add the giblets, ham, onion, carrot, and celery (or celery seed).

  3. Skim the surface and simmer gently for 2 hours until the goose is cooked.

  4. Remove the goose and giblets.

Finish and serve

  1. Serve the goose with onion sauce.

  2. Make a pie with the giblets.

  3. Strain the soup.

  4. Season the soup with cayenne pepper.

  5. Add sherry or Madeira to the soup.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 and rich flavour that gives the soup its body.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the stock as it simmers.
Onion
Builds a sweet, aromatic base that rounds out the broth.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and body to the soup.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, herbal aroma to the broth.
Sherry or madeira
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skim and simmer gently. Skimming removes foam and impurities that would cloud the soup. Gentle simmering, rather than a hard boil, keeps the broth clear and stops the goose from toughening.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, carrot, celery, pepper, sherry):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, celery, pepper, sherry. 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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