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To Roast Goose

Roast goose stuffed with bread crumbs, sage, onion, pepper, salt, and butter, served with apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

To Roast Goose

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Pick, draw, and singe the goose well.

  2. Cut off the head, neck, feet, and legs at the first joint, and remove the wings at the first joint.

  3. Prepare a stuffing with bread crumbs, sage, onion, pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter.

  4. Stuff the goose with the dressing.

Roast and serve

  1. Cover the breast with buttered paper to prevent scorching.

  2. Roast the goose in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 2 to 2.5 hours, basting well with butter.

  3. Remove the paper a little while before it's done to allow the breast to brown.

  4. Serve 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 + 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. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 fat that renders during roasting.
Bread crumbs
Form the body of the stuffing and absorb melted fat and juices.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the skin brown while basting.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and moisture to the stuffing as it cooks.
Sage
Contributes a earthy, aromatic flavour that suits rich poultry.

The step that matters

Remove the paper a little before it's done. The buttered paper blocks browning while it protects the breast from scorching. Removing it near the end lets the surface brown and crisp, since browning depends on direct heat reaching the skin.

Swap the apple

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

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

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