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To Roast

A goose stuffed with onion, sage, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, and egg yolks, roasted until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Make the stuffing by mixing onion, sage, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, and egg yolks in a bowl.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the goose, leaving a little room for the stuffing to swell.

  2. Secure the goose on a spit at both ends to prevent it from swinging and to keep the stuffing inside.

  3. Roast the goose in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with gravy and apple sauce.

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).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sage + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the bread crumb stuffing together and add richness.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb juices and give the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the stuffing.
Green sage
Contributes a herbal aroma that flavors the stuffing.

The step that matters

Leave room in the goose for the stuffing to swell. Stuffing expands as it heats and absorbs fat and juices. Packing it tightly can make it dense and can prevent the bird from cooking evenly around the cavity.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, bread, pepper, egg. 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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