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Roast Goose

Roast goose with onion stuffing and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Roast Goose

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Peel the onions.

  2. Slice the onions.

  3. Place the sliced onions in a basin.

  4. Add coarse sea salt to the onions.

  5. Pour boiling water over the onions.

  6. Let the onions sit for 2 hours.

  7. Wash the onions in cold water.

  8. Chop the onions finely.

  9. Mix the chopped onions with dried sage, salt, and black pepper.

  10. Stuff the onion mixture into the goose.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Hang the goose before a fire to roast for 1 hour and 45 minutes, basting constantly.

  2. In a pan, fry the sliced onions and gravy beef in dripping until browned.

  3. Add brown sugar while frying.

  4. Add more than 1 pint of water and any bones.

  5. Stew the mixture for 2.5 hours.

  6. Pour off the dripping.

  7. Mix the goose drippings with the stew.

  8. Add pepper, salt, and flour.

  9. Stir until smooth.

  10. Strain through a sieve.

Serve

  1. Place the goose on a hot dish.

  2. Pour some gravy over the goose.

  3. Serve the rest in a tureen.

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

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 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

Goose
Is the main meat, cooked by roasting with its fat rendering as it cooks.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they are cooked, adding flavour to the stuffing and gravy.
Gravy beef
Browns in dripping and stews into the liquid, enriching the gravy with meaty flavour.
Dripping
Fat used for frying that browns the onions and beef and carries flavour.
Dried flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it becomes smooth and lightly body.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the onions and beef brown during frying.

The step that matters

Stewing the gravy base. Stewing gently for a long time lets the bones, beef and onions release their flavour into the liquid. Boiling hard can make the gravy cloudy and greasy, so keep it at a gentle simmer.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, pepper, beef, sugar, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, pepper, beef, sugar, flour. 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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