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Roast Goose

Roast goose stuffed with onions, sage, bread crumbs, mashed potato, butter, and egg, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Roast Goose

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the inside and outside of the goose with coarse sea salt.

Stuff and roast

  1. In a bowl, mix the onions, sage, bread crumbs, mashed potato, salt, pepper, butter, and egg.

  2. Stuff the goose with the mixture, but do not overfill.

  3. Roast the goose in a brisk fire for 2.5 hours or more, basting often if using an open pan.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  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
Forms the main body of the dish, and its fat renders during roasting to crisp the skin.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and fat from the stuffing, giving it a soft, moist body.
Mashed potato
Adds moisture and body to the stuffing, helping it hold together.
Egg
Binds the stuffing ingredients together so they set as they cook.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and cook inside the bird.

The step that matters

Do not overfill the goose. Stuffing expands as it cooks and its binding egg sets. If packed tightly, the centre may stay cold while the outside overcooks, and the bird cooks unevenly.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, coffee, bread, potato, pepper, butter, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, coffee, bread, potato, pepper, butter, egg. 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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