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Baked Goose

A whole young goose roasted with pepper, coarse sea salt, and stuffing, served with apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,026 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Flatten the breast of the goose with a rolling pin and tie the legs and wings securely to the side.

  3. Prepare a dressing and stuff it into the goose as you would for a turkey.

  4. Rub pepper and coarse sea salt over the outside of the goose.

Roast and serve

  1. Pour hot water into the pan and baste the goose often.

  2. Bake a young goose for 1.5 hours; an older goose may take 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Serve with 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. Pepper + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,026 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Apple + saucetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Pepper and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Goose
Provides the main meat, whose fat renders during roasting and keeps the flesh moist.
Dressing
Fills the cavity, absorbing juices from the goose and adding moisture and flavour to the meat.
Apple sauce
Adds a sweet, acidic contrast that balances the rich, fatty goose meat.

The step that matters

Basting the goose often. Goose has a lot of fat under the skin. Pouring hot water into the pan and basting keeps the surface from drying out while the fat renders, helping the skin crisp and the meat stay moist.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sauce. 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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