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Roast Goose

Roast goose with salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, onion, apple, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and rosemary match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Roast Goose

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Clean the goose and remove any excess fat.

  3. Season the inside and outside with salt, pepper, and herbs.

  4. Stuff the cavity with chopped onion and apple.

Roast

  1. Place the goose in a roasting pan and add water.

  2. Roast for about 2 hours, basting occasionally, until the skin is golden brown and the juices run clear.

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. Thyme + rosemarytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + rosemarytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Goose
Provides the main protein and rich fat that renders during roasting.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavor and moisture to the cavity as it cooks.
Apple
Adds gentle sweetness and moisture inside the cavity during roasting.

The step that matters

Roast for about 2 hours, basting occasionally. Goose has a lot of fat under the skin. Basting and letting fat render helps the skin turn golden and crisp, while the juices running clear shows the meat is cooked through.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, thyme, rosemary, onion):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, thyme, rosemary, onion. 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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