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A French Stuffing for Roast Goose

A chestnut and sausage stuffing for roast goose, cooked with butter, herbs, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

A French Stuffing for Roast Goose

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Roast the chestnuts without burning them.

  2. Peel the roasted chestnuts carefully.

  3. Chop half of the chestnuts.

Make the stuffing

  1. Place the chopped chestnuts in a pan with sausage meat, butter, chopped liver, parsley, chives, shallots, and garlic.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat for 15 minutes.

  3. Stuff the goose with the mixture.

  4. Stitch up the belly flap of the goose.

Stew and serve

  1. In a separate pan, combine the remaining chestnuts with white wine, stock, and salt.

  2. Stew the chestnuts until the liquid reduces and thickens.

  3. Serve the chestnuts around the roast goose.

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. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Chestnut + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chestnut + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 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

Chestnuts
Provide starchy bulk and a soft, mealy texture to the stuffing and the stewed garnish.
Sausage meat
Adds fat and savoury flavour, enriching the stuffing and keeping it moist.
Goose liver
Adds richness and a creamy, deep flavour to the stuffing.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and its reduction helps build the stewed chestnuts' sauce.
Shallots
Add a mild sweetness and aromatic depth to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Stew the chestnuts until the liquid reduces and thickens. Reducing the wine and stock concentrates flavour and lets starch from the chestnuts thicken the liquid into a glossy sauce. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while overcooking can make it dry and pasty.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chestnut, meat, butter, liver, parsley, chive, shallot):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chestnut, meat, butter, liver, parsley, chive, shallot. 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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