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Goose, Roast

Roasted goose stuffed with onion, basted with fat, served with gravy and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Goose, Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare and truss the goose.

  2. Stuff the body with onion stuffing.

  3. Baste well with hot fat.

Roast

  1. Roast or bake for 2 to 2½ hours, depending on size and age.

  2. Baste frequently.

  3. If the surface is not well browned, dredge with flour when the bird is three-quarters cooked.

Serve

  1. Remove the trussing string.

  2. Serve on a hot dish with gravy and apple sauce in sauceboats.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Onion + appletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,206 recipes

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

  3. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Beef + appletop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,364 recipes

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

  5. Beef + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,650 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Onion and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Goose
Is the main dish, providing rich meat and fat that cooks down during roasting.
Beef stock or gravy
Adds savoury moisture and flavour to the sauce served alongside the goose.
Fat for basting
Carries heat over the skin, helping it brown and crisp while keeping the meat moist.
Flour (in the method)
Dredged over the surface to help the skin brown when it is not browning well.

The step that matters

Basting and browning the surface. Hot fat spooned over the bird transfers heat to the skin, driving browning and keeping the meat moist. Without regular basting, the surface can dry out and brown unevenly, which is why the record calls for frequent basting and flour if browning lags.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, beef, sauce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, beef, sauce. 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.

More roasted goose recipes

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