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Roast Goose

Roast Goose is a whole goose stuffed with bread crumbs, butter, sage, pepper, salt, onion, and giblets, baked until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Stuff the goose with a mixture of bread crumbs, butter, sage, black pepper, salt, and chopped onion, but do not overstuff.

  3. Sew the openings firmly to keep the flavor in and fat out.

Roast

  1. Place the goose in a baking pan with a little water.

  2. Baste frequently with saltwater (and vinegar if desired) and turn often for even browning.

  3. Bake for two hours or more until done.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove from the pan and pour off the fat.

  2. To the remaining brown gravy, add the chopped giblets and the water they were boiled in.

  3. Thicken the gravy with a little flour and butter rubbed together, bring to a boil, and serve.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 rendered fat that bastes and flavors the bird as it roasts.
Bread crumbs
Absorb fat and juices inside the bird, giving the stuffing a moist, soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the stuffing moist and helps the skin brown.
Flour
Thickens the pan gravy when cooked with butter, giving it body.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness to the stuffing as it cooks inside the bird.

The step that matters

Bake until done, basting and turning. Goose has a lot of fat that must render out while the meat cooks through. Frequent basting and turning help the skin brown evenly and keep the meat moist, so the bird should be checked for doneness rather than judged by time alone.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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