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Roast Goose A' LA Espanola

A roasted goose stuffed with bread crumbs, onion, gizzard, liver, and heart, seasoned with salt, pepper, and sage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage 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 ↓

Roast Goose A' LA Espanola

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Dress and draw the goose one day before cooking; season it well with salt and pepper inside and out, then hang it in a dry, cool place until the next day.

  2. Mix bread crumbs, chopped onion, gizzard, liver, and heart. Add ½ teaspoon black pepper, some salt, and sage. Mix well with a fork.

  3. Slowly add 2 tablespoons melted butter and the beaten egg to the stuffing mixture.

  4. Fill the inside and neck of the goose with the stuffing, then sew the openings closed.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the goose in a deep roasting pan.

  2. Rub 2 tablespoons butter all over it and add 1 teacup of warm water.

  3. Dredge the goose with flour.

  4. Bake in a slow oven at 300 °F (150 °C), allowing 15 minutes for each pound of weight.

  5. Serve with hot apple or onion 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. Pepper + sagetop 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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Liver + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and egg to bind the stuffing and keep it moist.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the skin brown.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the stuffing.
Flour
Dusted on the skin to help it crisp and brown during roasting.

The step that matters

Slowly add the melted butter and beaten egg to the stuffing. Adding the fat and egg gradually lets them distribute evenly through the crumbs, so the stuffing binds into a cohesive mass rather than becoming greasy or lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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