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To Roast Goose

A whole goose roasted with onion, sage, pepper, and salt, basted and served with gravy.

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 ↓

To Roast Goose

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the goose, remove the plugs of feathers, and singe off any hairs.

  2. Wash and dry the goose thoroughly.

  3. Season the cavity with onion, sage, pepper, and salt.

  4. Fasten the neck and rump tightly.

Roast

  1. Start roasting the goose at a distance from the fire, gradually moving it closer.

  2. Skewer a slip of paper on the breastbone.

  3. Baste the goose well throughout the cooking process.

  4. When the breast is rising, remove the paper.

Serve

  1. Serve the goose before the breast falls to avoid it becoming flat.

  2. Prepare a good gravy to serve with the dish.

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. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Goose
The main meat; its rendering fat keeps the flesh moist and crisps the skin during roasting.
Onion
Sits in the cavity, releasing mild sweetness and aroma into the meat as it roasts.
Sage
Adds a savoury, herbal aroma that penetrates the goose as it cooks.

The step that matters

Start roasting at a distance from the fire, moving the goose closer gradually. A gentler start gives fat time to render and heat time to reach the centre before the outside browns too quickly. Raising the heat gradually helps the bird cook through evenly with crisp skin.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, pepper. 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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