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Roasted Goose and Apple Sauce

Roasted goose stuffed with sage, onion, and breadcrumbs, served with apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Roasted Goose and Apple Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the goose

  1. Stuff the goose with sage, onion, and bread crumbs.

  2. Season the goose with pepper and salt.

  3. Fasten the goose tightly at the neck and rump.

  4. Cover the breast with buttered paper.

Roast and brown

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

  2. When the breast begins to rise, remove the paper.

  3. Dredge and brown the goose well.

Make the apple sauce and serve

  1. For apple sauce, boil peeled and cored apple quarters with cinnamon, cloves, lemon peel, and a little water until tender.

  2. Remove spices before serving.

  3. Serve the goose with good gravy and apple sauce in a separate 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Sage + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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; its fat renders during roasting, keeping the flesh moist and crisping the skin.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the paper-covered breast brown evenly.
4-6 best boiling apples
Break down into a soft sauce, providing body and tart, fruity flavour.
French bread crumbs
Absorb juices from the goose and give the stuffing a soft, moist texture.
1 onion, finely chopped
Softens and adds savoury aroma to the stuffing as it cooks inside the bird.

The step that matters

Start roasting at a distance, then move closer while basting. Gentle heat at first lets the fat render slowly so the goose cooks through without scorching. Moving it closer later, with frequent basting, browns the skin and keeps the meat moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, bread, pepper, butter, apple, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, bread, pepper, butter, apple, cinnamon, clove. 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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