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Sage and Onion Stuffing for Geese, Pork, and Ducks
Skin ten or twelve onions, and throw them into cold water. When all are peeled, put them with six or eight green sage-leaves into a saucepan of boiling water and let them boil till tender. Pour off the water, mince the onions and sage finely, and beat them well with a piece of butter the size of an egg and a little pepper and salt. Heat them again till the butter is dissolved, and serve very hot. If dried sage is used, it must be powdered and mixed with the onions after they are boiled. Time, about an hour and a half. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for six persons. (See also ONION AND SAGE STUFFING.) SAGE AND ONION STUFFING FOR GEESE, PORK, AND DUCKS (another way). Peel four large onions, and boil them for three minutes; add about half a dozen sage-leaves, and boil all for two minutes longer. Strain off the liquor, and mince finely the onions and sage. Return them to the saucepan with a slice of fresh butter, a little pepper and salt, and a quarter of a pound of bread-crumbs. Let all simmer gently together, and stir the mixture occasionally, to keep it from burning, for twenty minutes, when the stuffing will be ready for use. A beaten egg may be added if liked. Sage and onion stuffing is generally seasoned rather highly. When it is used for goose, the liver of the bird may be boiled, minced, and mixed with it. Time, half an hour. Probable cost, 4d. Sufficient for a moderate-sized goose or a couple of ducks. (See also ONION AND SAGE STUFFING.)
Two versions of the same thing: the first is essentially a buttered onion purée, the second the breadcrumb stuffing most cooks now recognise. Both hinge on getting the onion sweet rather than raw and sharp.
- Boil the onions properlyThe second version's three minutes plus two is nowhere near enough for a large onion; you will get crunchy, acrid pieces that stay that way inside the bird. Simmer them 10-15 minutes until a knife goes through easily, then add the sage for the last minute or two.
- Butter the size of an eggRoughly 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons. The first recipe is heavily buttered because it has no breadcrumbs to carry flavour.
- Fresh sage to driedSix to eight fresh leaves is about a tablespoon chopped; substitute roughly a teaspoon of dried rubbed sage. As the text says, stir dried sage in after boiling rather than boiling it with the onions; the book gives no reason for the instruction.
- BreadcrumbsA quarter of a pound is about 2 cups of fresh crumbs from a day-old loaf, or 1 cup of dry. Fresh crumbs give a lighter, moister stuffing; packaged dry crumbs will need extra butter or a spoonful of the onion water.
- The first version is not a stuffing at allThe first version reads more like a sauce -- With no crumbs and no egg it is a soft onion and sage puree, and the instruction to "serve very hot" suggests it was often sent to table alongside pork or goose rather than packed into it, though the book still files it as a stuffing.
- Cook it outside the birdStuffing packed into a goose or duck sits in juices and rarely reaches a safe temperature before the breast overcooks. Bake it in a buttered dish at 375F for 30-40 minutes, or spoon it into the cavity loosely and check it reaches 165F.
- Goose liverIf you use it, boil or gently fry the liver until firm and cooked through before mincing it in, and use it the same day. Do not fold in raw liver and rely on the stuffing's own cooking.
- Seasoning and yield"Seasoned rather highly" is meant literally: sage and onion needs assertive salt and a good deal of black pepper to register against fatty roast goose or pork. The second recipe is said to make enough for a moderate goose or a couple of ducks.
Sage and onion is the English answer to fat: goose, duck and pork all render heavily in the oven, and the combination of a pungent herb and a sweet allium was long understood to cut through it. Sage was a kitchen-garden staple in Britain well before the eighteenth century, valued for its flavour and, it is often said, for its digestive virtues, and eighteenth-century cookery books do give sage and onion for roast goose. What is telling about Cassell's entry is the pair of versions and the pennies attached to each: 6d for the buttery onion mash, 4d for the breadcrumb stuffing that stretches the same flavour further with stale bread. This was a book written for households counting the cost of a dinner, and bread-crumbs were the cheapest bulk in the larder. The habit of working the goose's liver into the stuffing belongs to the same thrift, using a part of the bird that would otherwise be wasted.