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Roast Goose

Roast Goose is a roasted whole goose seasoned with sage and onion, served after roasting for about two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 the goose

  1. Select a goose with clean white skin and plump breast.

  2. Pluck, singe, draw, and wipe the goose clean.

  3. Cut off the neck close to the back, leaving enough skin to turn over.

  4. Cut off the feet at the first joint and separate the pinions.

  5. Flatten the breast with a rolling pin and stuff the goose.

  6. Prepare the stuffing with sage and onion, then truss the goose.

Roast

  1. Dredge the top of the goose with salt and pepper.

  2. Place 1 cup of boiling water in the bottom of the dripping pan.

  3. Baste the goose often while roasting.

  4. Roast for about 2 hours.

  5. If the meat is tough, pour 1 cup of vinegar over it.

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

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

  3. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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, whose fat renders during roasting to crisp the skin.
Sage
Adds a savoury, aromatic herbal flavour to the stuffing.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and moisture to the stuffing as it cooks inside the bird.
Vinegar
Its acidity can help soften tough meat fibres when poured over the goose.

The step that matters

Basting the goose often while roasting. Goose has a lot of fat under the skin, and regular basting spreads the rendered fat and juices over the surface, helping the skin brown and stay moist rather than drying out.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, pepper, vinegar, meat):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, pepper, vinegar, meat. 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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