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GOOSE, BRAISED (a la Jardiniere)
Cook a goose according to the directions given for GOOSE A LA DAUBE. When it is sufficiently stewed, put in the liquid any quantity of mixed vegetables, ready cooked, such as French beans, green peas, pieces of cauliflower, and carrots and turnips, cut into shapes. Thicken the sauce, let all boil up together, and serve with the goose. Time, four hours to stew. Probable cost of goose, 6s. Sufficient for eight or ten persons. (See also GOOSE, To BRAISE.)
This is a garnish instruction built on another entry rather than a standalone recipe: the goose is braised as for à la daube, then finished with cooked vegetables in the thickened braising liquid. Two things decide whether it works — degreasing the liquid, and adding the vegetables only at the very end.
- Skim before you thickenA goose renders an enormous quantity of fat, and four hours of stewing will leave a deep layer on the surface. Ladle or blot it off before thickening or the sauce will never come together; the fat itself is worth saving for potatoes.
- What "à la daube" braising meansWhat "a la daube" braising means -- The cross-referenced entry is not reproduced here, but a daube in this period means a close-lidded pot, the bird moistened part-way up with stock and vegetables, and kept at a bare simmer rather than a hard boil.
- Four hours is for an old birdFour hours is a long stew -- The recipe allows the full four hours, which suits an older, tougher bird. A modern farmed goose of 9-11 lb will usually be tender well short of that, nearer 2.5 to 3 hours; test the leg joint for looseness rather than watching the clock.
- "Cut into shapes"The recipe leaves the cut open: carrots and turnips pared into small even shapes, whether turned into barrels and olives or cut as uniform batons. Uniformity is the point.
- Vegetables go in cooked, and brieflyFrench beans, peas and cauliflower are added already blanched and only heated through in the sauce. Boiling them for any length of time in the braise turns the peas grey and collapses the cauliflower.
- Thickening the sauceStrain the degreased liquid and thicken with beurre manié or a little arrowroot slaked in cold water, then let it come up once. Reduce first if it tastes thin — a well-made goose braise usually needs less thickener than expected.
- Yield and costEight to ten servings is realistic for a whole goose, though the carcass is mostly frame and fat, so count on less meat per pound than a turkey. The 6s. price is a Victorian retail figure and has no modern equivalent.
À la jardinière — "in the gardener's manner" — is one of the standardised French garnish names that appears in English cookery books of the later nineteenth century: a mixture of fresh vegetables, cut to neat uniform shapes, cooked separately and arranged around or served with a braised joint or bird. Cassell's, published as a dictionary, handles it exactly as a dictionary would, sending the reader to Goose à la Daube for the method and confining itself to the finish, with a further cross-reference to Goose, To Braise. Goose was still an ordinary festive and Michaelmas bird in Britain at this date, and rich enough that cookery writers are often said to have paired it with sharp or vegetable accompaniments; the jardinière garnish does for a braised goose what apple sauce does for a roast one.