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Boiled Goose with Pickled Pork

A boiled goose served with slices of boiled ham or salt pork and celery sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Boiled Goose with Pickled Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Singe, draw, and wash the goose.

Cook

  1. Plunge the goose into boiling salted water with the onion.

  2. Simmer until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve in portions with a slice of boiled ham or leg of salt pork.

  2. Accompany with celery 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.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Onion + hamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Ham + celerytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Onion and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 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
The main protein, which becomes tender and juicy as it simmers slowly in liquid.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savour to the cooking water, which lightly flavours the goose.
Boiled ham or leg of salt pork
Adds salty, savoury richness alongside the mild goose meat.

The step that matters

Simmer until tender. Keeping the water at a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil stops the meat fibres from toughening and breaking apart. This lets the goose cook evenly and stay intact while the connective tissue softens.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, ham, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, ham, sauce. 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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