Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓
Roast Goose and Apple Sauce
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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Clean the goose and season it inside and out with salt and pepper.
Roast and make the sauce
Place the goose in a roasting pan and roast for about 2 hours, basting occasionally.
While the goose is roasting, prepare the apple sauce by peeling and slicing the apples.
Cook the apples with sugar and cinnamon in a saucepan until soft.
Serve
Serve the roasted goose with the apple sauce on the side.
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.
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Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together4,890 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
-
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Pepper + appletop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,026 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
- Whole goose
- Provides the main meat, whose fat renders during roasting to keep the flesh moist.
- Apples
- Break down when cooked to form the body of the apple sauce.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the apple sauce and balances the tartness of the apples.
The step that matters
Roasting the goose with basting. Goose has a lot of fat under the skin that must render slowly; basting at intervals helps keep the meat moist and the skin evenly browned over the roughly two-hour roast.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sugar, cinnamon):
- Lemonfits better
- Limefits better
- Orangefits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, cinnamon. 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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