Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Goose

Boiled goose stuffed with bread crumbs, pepper, salt, butter, onions, and sage, served with giblet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and sage 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 ↓

Boiled Goose

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Singe the dressed goose thoroughly.

  2. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, pepper, salt, butter, onions (if using), and sage.

  3. Fill the body of the goose with the dressing and close it firmly.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the goose in cold water and boil gently for 1 hour, or longer if not tender.

  2. Serve with giblet 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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Goose
Is the main protein; gentle boiling tenderises its meat over time.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and seasonings, forming a moist, flavourful stuffing inside the goose.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the bread crumb dressing moist and flavourful.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the dressing as it cooks inside the goose.
Dried sage
Contributes a warm, earthy aroma that flavours the bread crumb dressing.

The step that matters

Boil gently, testing for tenderness. Boiling at a vigorous rolling boil can toughen and break up meat, while gentle simmering keeps it tender. Goose is fatty and can need longer than the stated hour, so checking tenderness matters.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, sage. 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.

More boiled goose recipes

with Onion Sauce 6 See all 18 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes