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Roast Goose Stuffed with Chestnuts

A roasted goose filled with a mixture of sausage, mushrooms, chestnuts, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Roast Goose Stuffed with Chestnuts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the goose

  1. Singe the goose.

  2. Draw the goose.

  3. Wash the goose.

  4. Dry the goose.

Make the stuffing

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  2. Cook the shallot for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Add sausage meat and cook for 5 minutes.

  4. Stir in mushrooms, pounded chestnuts, salt, pepper, thyme, and parsley, and bring to a boil.

  5. Mix in bread crumbs and whole chestnuts.

  6. Let mixture cool.

Stuff, roast and serve

  1. Stuff mixture into the goose.

  2. Sew both ends.

  3. Truss the goose.

  4. Wrap in buttered paper.

  5. Roast in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours, basting with drippings.

  6. Skim fat from drippings.

  7. Add ½ cup white broth and bring to a boil.

  8. Strain into a sauceboat.

  9. 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + chestnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Goose
Forms the main body of the dish, and its fat renders during roasting to baste the bird.
Sausage meat
Adds savoury fat and richness to the stuffing, keeping it moist as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and fat in the stuffing, giving it a softer, binding texture.
Chestnuts
Add starchy body and a sweet, nutty flavour to the stuffing.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy savour to the stuffing as they release and reabsorb liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and helps cook the shallot and sausage without sticking.

The step that matters

Let the stuffing cool before stuffing the goose. Warm or hot stuffing packed into the bird can hold bacteria in the cavity while the goose heats slowly, so cooling first and stuffing just before roasting keeps the dish safer and helps the stuffing hold its shape.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, meat, mushroom, chestnut, thyme, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, meat, mushroom, chestnut, thyme, parsley. 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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