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Roast Goose with Bared Apple
1 eight-pound goose 2 cups bread-crums 1 chopped onion 2 tablespoons fat 3 sweet potatoes 1/4 teaspoon sage 1 teaspoon salt Pinch of pepper 6 to 8 apples 1/4 cup brown sugar Cook the giblets until tender, chop and add to stuffing made by mixing bread-crums, onion, fat, sage, salt and pepper. After cleaning and washing the goose thoroughly, stuff, and sew the neck and back. Roast very slowly (350-400 degrees F.), about three hours. Wash and core six to eight apples; sprinkle with sugar, stuff with mashed and seasoned sweet potato. Bake until tender and serve hot with the goose.
A straightforward roast goose with a bread-and-sage dressing, served with apples stuffed with sweet potato in place of a starch on the plate. A few things the original leaves to the cook's judgment are worth settling before you start.
- Deal with the fat firstGoose carries far more subcutaneous fat than turkey or chicken. Prick the skin all over the breast and thighs before roasting and pour the rendered fat out of the pan two or three times during cooking, or the bird sits and fries in it. Save the fat; it keeps for months refrigerated and is excellent for potatoes.
- The temperature range as written350F and 400F are not interchangeable here. Roast at 350F for the bulk of the time; if you want crisper skin, raise the heat to 425F for the last 20 minutes rather than starting high. Note that the recipe files a range topping out at 400F under the heading "very slowly"; take the low end as the intent.
- Doneness, not clock timeThree hours is a reasonable estimate for an eight-pound bird, but check with a thermometer: 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone, and 165F in the center of the stuffing. Goose legs benefit from going a little further, to about 175F, while the breast stays juicier if it does not.
- Cook the sweet potatoesThe ingredient list gives three sweet potatoes and the method calls for "mashed and seasoned sweet potato" without saying to cook them. Boil or bake them until soft, peel, and mash with butter, salt and pepper before filling the apples.
- Apples that hold their shapeUse a firm baking apple such as Rome, Golden Delicious or Northern Spy. Cored and filled, they need about 30 to 40 minutes at 350F; put them in the oven for the last part of the goose's roasting time and they will be ready together.
- Bread-crumsRead this as dry bread crumbs from stale bread, coarser than commercial fine crumbs. Two cups makes a modest dressing for an eight-pound bird; double it if you want leftovers, and cook the surplus in a buttered dish alongside.
- The fat in the stuffingTwo tablespoons of unspecified fat means butter or, better here, some of the goose fat rendered from the neck and trimmings. Soften the chopped onion in it before mixing rather than adding it raw.
- YieldAn eight-pound goose is mostly frame and fat; expect it to serve four to six, not the eight a turkey of that weight would feed.
Goose was the standard festive roast in Britain and much of northern Europe long before turkey displaced it, and it held on in American cookbooks well into the twentieth century as a Christmas and Michaelmas bird. The pairing with apples is old and practical: the fruit's acidity cuts a very rich meat, which is also why sage turns up in the dressing. What marks this version as American and of its moment is the sweet potato filling in the apples, a thrifty way of getting two side dishes out of one baked item. New Delineator Recipes came out of The Delineator, the Butterick pattern company's magazine, whose food pages were aimed at home cooks managing a full holiday table without kitchen staff.