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Roast Goose

Roast goose with sage dressing, served with apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Goose

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the goose

  1. Draw, singe, and clean the goose.

  2. Season the goose with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and ground ginger.

  3. Stuff the goose with sage dressing.

Roast

  1. Place the goose in a roasting pan in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) and brown, basting frequently.

  2. Add a little boiling water to the pan and baste every 15 minutes.

  3. Cook for 2 to 4 hours or until the meat on the breast and legs is tender.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. For gravy, remove some fat from the pan, leaving about 4 tablespoons.

  2. Add 3 tablespoons flour to the fat and stir until brown.

  3. Slowly add 2 cups hot water or soup stock, stirring constantly until it boils.

  4. Season the gravy with salt and pepper, then add the chopped gizzard and parsley.

  5. Serve the roast goose with 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.

  1. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + sagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together157 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Goose
Is the main protein; slow roasting renders its fat and turns the meat tender.
Flour
Thickens the pan fat and drippings into a smooth, stable gravy when cooked and stirred.
Fat from roasting pan
Carries flavor and helps the flour cook into a roux for the gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the fat until brown. Cooking flour in fat develops a nutty, browned flavor and removes raw starch taste. Adding the liquid slowly while stirring prevents lumps, so the gravy stays smooth.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, ginger, sage, flour, parsley, sauce):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, ginger, sage, flour, parsley, 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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