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Braised Goose

Braised goose stuffed with onions, bread, butter, parsley, nutmeg, chestnuts, and seasoned with carrot, celery, onion, parsley, marjoram, clove, and tomato puree.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Braised Goose

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the goose

  1. Singe, clean, and truss the goose.

  2. Stuff the goose with the parboiled onions, soaked bread, butter, chopped parsley, nutmeg, and chopped chestnuts. Season with salt and pepper.

Braise

  1. Place the goose in a saucepan with the chopped carrot, celery, onion, parsley, sweet marjoram, and clove.

  2. Braise, covered, for 2 hours.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the goose, strain and skim the gravy, then reduce it.

  2. Mix the reduced gravy with the tomato puree, heat, and pour around the goose before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Nutmeg + chestnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

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

  5. Parsley + chestnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 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
Provides the main meat, whose fat renders and enriches the braising liquid during the long covered cook.
Bread
Soaked in milk, it holds moisture and binds the stuffing so it stays tender rather than dry.
Chestnuts
Add starchy body and a soft, earthy texture to the stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing, keeping it moist and flavourful.
Tomato puree
Adds acidity, colour and concentrated savoury depth to the reduced gravy.

The step that matters

Braise covered for 2 hours. The lid traps steam so the goose cooks gently in its own moisture. Too much heat or an uncovered pan dries the meat and stops the connective tissue from softening into tender meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, butter, parsley, nutmeg, chestnut, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, parsley, nutmeg, chestnut, pepper. 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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