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Roast Goose

Roast goose stuffed with bread, herbs, onions, mashed potatoes, butter, and egg yolk, served with gravy and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Goose

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Draw, clean, and thoroughly dry the goose inside and out.

  3. Save the giblets for the gravy.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the goose with a mixture of bread, sage, thyme, onions, mashed potatoes, butter, salt, pepper, and egg yolk.

  2. Truss the goose and roast it at a brisk fire, basting it like a turkey.

  3. Pour off excess fat to prevent the gravy from being too rich.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Boil the giblets in a saucepan with salt, pepper, and a little butter.

  2. Chop the neck, heart, liver, and gizzard, and add them to the gravy after skimming.

  3. Combine the gravies and serve in a gravy boat.

  4. Serve with apple sauce as an accompaniment.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,586 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Goose
Its fat bastes the meat as it roasts, keeping the bird moist and rich-flavored.
Bread
Soaks up fat and juices in the stuffing, giving it a soft, moist texture.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing ingredients together so they hold their shape while cooking.
Mashed potatoes
Adds moisture and body to the stuffing, keeping it tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown and the flavor develop.
Sage
Contributes a savory, aromatic herbal flavor that suits rich poultry.

The step that matters

Pour off excess fat before making the gravy. Goose renders a large amount of fat during roasting. Leaving too much in the pan makes the gravy greasy and heavy, so the fat should be skimmed or poured off first.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sage, thyme, potato, butter, pepper, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sage, thyme, potato, butter, pepper, egg. 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 roasted goose recipes

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