Skip to main content
Main

Roast Goose

Roast goose stuffed with bread crumbs, celery, butter, onion, and served with apple compote.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Roast Goose

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the goose

  1. Select a young goose with a flexible breastbone and smooth yellow feet.

  2. Make stuffing by mixing bread crumbs, chopped celery, butter, chopped onion, salt, and pepper, then cook it in a frying pan until browned.

  3. Fill the goose two-thirds full with the stuffing.

  4. Dredge the goose with seasoned flour.

Roast

  1. Place the goose in a deep pan with 1 cup of water and cover the pan.

  2. Baste the goose frequently while cooking for 20 minutes per pound until tender.

  3. Remove the cover.

  4. Roast for the last 15 minutes until browned.

Make the apples

  1. Cook sugar and water for 5 minutes.

  2. Add lemon peel if desired.

  3. Drop in the apple quarters and cook until transparent.

  4. Cool in a glass dish.

  5. Boil down the juice.

  6. Pour over the apples when cool.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Celery + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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
Provides the main meat, and its fat bastes the bird as it roasts.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and juices in the stuffing, keeping it moist and lightly bound.
Flour
Seasoned dredging flour helps the goose skin brown and crisp during roasting.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, with water, cooks the apples into a glossy coating.
Apples
Soften in the syrup and add tart fruitiness to balance the rich goose.

The step that matters

Cover the pan, then uncover for the last 15 minutes. Covering keeps the goose moist and tender during the long roast, while uncovering at the end lets dry heat brown and crisp the skin. Skipping the uncovered stage leaves the skin pale and flabby.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, celery, butter, onion, pepper, flour, sugar. 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.

More roast goose recipes

and Turkey 4with Apple Dressing 4Potato Stuffing for 3with Potato Stuffing 3with Sage and Onion Stuffing 3 See all 150 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes