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Goose Roasted

A roasted wild goose stuffed with bread crumbs, butter, onions, sage, pepper, and salt, served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Goose Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the goose

  1. Soak the goose in salt water for 12 hours before cooking.

  2. If the goose is old, parboil it for at least 1 hour.

  3. Kill the goose at least 24 hours before cooking.

  4. Cut the neck close to the back and flatten the breast bone with a rolling pin.

  5. Tie the wings and legs securely.

Stuff and truss

  1. Stuff the goose with a mixture of bread crumbs, butter, onions, sage, black pepper, and salt.

  2. Do not overstuff; stitch openings firmly to keep flavor in.

  3. If the goose is not fat, lard it with salt pork or tie a slice on the breast.

Roast and baste

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

  2. Baste frequently with salt water, turning often for even browning.

  3. When nearly done, baste with butter and a little flour.

  4. Bake for 2 hours, or longer if the goose is old.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the goose from the pan.

  2. Pour off the fat.

  3. Add chopped giblets to the brown gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter.

  5. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  6. Serve the gravy with currant jelly.

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. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sage + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Wild goose
Provides the rich, fatty meat that is the centre of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Soak up melted butter and drippings, keeping the stuffing moist and tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown during basting.
Flour
Thickens the drippings into a smooth gravy.
Onions
Add aromatic flavour to the stuffing as they soften in the fat.

The step that matters

Basting near the end with butter and flour. Butter adds fat that browns the skin, while flour helps create a surface that colours evenly. Adding it too early can burn the flour and darken the bird unevenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

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