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Goose Stuffing, Sage-And-Onion
Boil four large onions till tender; drain them from the water, and mince them finely with four fresh sage-leaves, or six dry ones, four table-spoonfuls of bread-crumbs, a tea-spoonful of salt, a tea-spoonful of made mustard, a tea-spoonful of moist sugar, and half a tea-spoonful of pepper: a large apple, pared and cored, and a quarter of a nutmeg, grated, may be added, if approved. Time to boil the onions, from twenty minutes to half an hour. Sufficient for a good-sized goose. Probable cost, 6d. for this quantity. (See also additional particulars connected with this stuffing, under GOOSE, ROAST.)
A plain Victorian sage-and-onion forcemeat, loose and sharp rather than rich. The proportions are sound; only a few of the terms and quantities need translating.
- Boil the onions first, and drain them hardThe parboiling is the point of the recipe: raw onion in a goose cavity stays crunchy and harsh, while boiled onion collapses into the crumbs. Drain and press them well, or the stuffing turns to soup inside the bird.
- Moist sugarUnrefined soft sugar, the Victorian everyday grade. Light brown sugar is the closest match; a teaspoonful is there to balance the onion, not to sweeten.
- Made mustardMustard already mixed to a paste, as opposed to dry mustard flour. Use prepared English mustard for the intended sharpness; Dijon works but is milder.
- Bread-crumbsVictorian bread-crumbs were usually grated from stale bread; soft crumbs suit this stuffing better than dry packaged crumbs, which absorb far more liquid. Four tablespoons is a modest amount for four large onions, so expect a wet, oniony stuffing rather than a firm one.
- SageFour fresh leaves is restrained by modern taste. Six to eight fresh leaves, or about a teaspoon of dried rubbed sage, will give a more pronounced sage flavour if you want one.
- A quarter of a nutmegSomething like half a teaspoon once grated, though whole nutmegs vary; grate, taste, and stop early, since it dominates quickly.
- Cooking it in the birdStuffing packed in a goose must reach 165F/74C at the centre, and it sits in rendering fat that slows the rise. Pack it loosely, or bake it in a dish alongside for 30-40 minutes at 375F/190C and spoon the goose fat over.
- YieldThe recipe reckons this enough for a good-sized goose; in modern terms roughly 3 cups.
Sage and onion is a traditional English answer to fatty poultry: both onion and sage were credited in older kitchen lore with cutting grease and helping digestion, and the pairing is most often found with goose, duck and pork rather than with lean birds. The apple and nutmeg offered here as optional recall the northern European habit of fruit with goose, familiar from German and Scandinavian roasts. Cassell's gives a price -- sixpence for a goose's worth -- because the Dictionary was written for households keeping accounts, where a stuffing was judged as much on cost per head as on flavour; a roast goose was Michaelmas and Christmas food, and its stuffing was expected to stretch the bird to feed the table.