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Boiled Goose

A whole goose stuffed with a breadcrumb and herb dressing, boiled until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 goose thoroughly.

  2. Prepare the dressing by mixing bread crumbs, pepper, salt, butter, onions, sage, and additional pepper.

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

Cook 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, becoming tender as it simmers gently in water.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and onion juices to form a moist dressing that fills the body of the goose.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing, carrying flavour and moisture.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the dressing as they soften.
Dried sage
Adds an herbal, earthy aroma that complements the rich goose.

The step that matters

Boil gently and check tenderness. Boiling hard can toughen and break up the meat, so a gentle simmer cooks it evenly. Goose is fatty and dense, so it may need more than one hour to become tender.

Swap the onion

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.

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