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Roast Goose

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Roast Goose

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Clean and truss the goose.

  2. If the goose is old, boil it for 30 minutes wrapped in a clean cloth.

  3. Stuff the goose with bread crumbs mixed with butter, pepper, salt, and sage.

  4. Dot the goose with drippings or lard.

  5. Baste the goose frequently while baking.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Potato + marjoramtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, pepper, sage, marjoram, apple):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, sage, marjoram, apple. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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