Skip to main content
Main

Green-goose Pie

A pie made from two young green geese, seasoned with salt, pepper, mace, allspice, and butter, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mace and allspice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,189 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Green-goose Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the geese

  1. Bone the geese, remove all plugs, and singe them nicely.

  2. Wash the geese and season them with salt, pepper, mace, and allspice.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place one goose inside the other, pressing them close and drawing the legs inwards.

  2. Cover the geese with a good amount of butter.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven with or without a crust, ensuring a close-fitting cover if without crust.

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. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. White pepper + allspicetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Allspice + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,325 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Mace and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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

Young green geese
Provide the rich meat that forms the body of the pie.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the meat tender and juicy as it bakes.
Mace
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the seasoned meat.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the seasoned meat.

The step that matters

Cover the geese with a good amount of butter. Fat coats the meat and slows moisture loss in the oven, so the birds stay tender rather than drying out during the long bake. Too little butter leaves the surface exposed to dry heat.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mace, allspice, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mace, allspice, butter. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes