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Roast Goose

Roast Goose is a goose stuffed with onions, sage, bread crumbs, butter, pork, egg, and seasonings, then roasted and served with gravy and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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. Truss the goose by cutting the neck close to the back and beating the breastbone flat with a rolling pin.

  2. Tie or skewer the legs and wings securely.

  3. Stuff the goose with the mixture of onions, sage, bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, egg, and chopped pork.

  4. Sprinkle the top of the goose with salt, pepper, and flour.

  5. Reserve the giblets to boil and chop for gravy.

Roast and baste

  1. Baste the goose repeatedly while roasting.

  2. Roast a green goose for at least 1.5 hours; older geese may require 3 to 4 hours in an oven with hot water in the baking pan.

  3. Baste often with the hot water, then with butter and a little flour when nearly done.

Serve

  1. Decorate with watercress and serve with brown giblet gravy and 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. Sage + peppertop 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. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sage + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Goose
Is the main meat, and its fat renders during roasting to keep the bird moist and crisp the skin.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the juices and fat in the stuffing, giving it a moist, soft body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that promotes browning when basted over the skin.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and cook in the stuffing.
Flour
Helps the sprinkled and basted skin brown and form a light crust.

The step that matters

Roasting time for the goose. Older geese need much longer than a young one, and roasting too briefly leaves the meat underdone, especially in thick areas. Basting with hot water keeps the surface from drying before the fat has rendered fully.

Swap the onion

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

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

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