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Potato Stuffing for Goose
Take six potatoes; one teaspoon of pepper; one teaspoon of sage; one tablespoon of salt; two tablespoons of butter; two tablespoons of onion juice. Pare and boil the potatoes, and mash them fine. Add the seasoning, mixing thoroughly.
A plain dry stuffing meant to absorb goose fat rather than add any of its own. Two things need attention: the salt, and what "onion juice" means.
- Onion juiceGrate a peeled onion on the fine side of a box grater and press the pulp through a sieve, or pulse an onion in a blender and strain. One medium onion yields roughly two tablespoons of juice. Substituting minced raw onion changes the texture and leaves it crunchy inside the bird.
- The salt is highA full tablespoon of salt to six potatoes reads as very salty by current palates, and the salt a period cook had to hand may well have been coarser and less dense than modern fine table salt. Start with a teaspoon and a half, taste the warm mixture, and build from there.
- "Six potatoes"Genuinely imprecise. Aim for about 2 lb of a floury variety such as russet, which mashes dry and takes the seasoning well; waxy potatoes turn gluey when mashed fine.
- SageA teaspoon most likely means dried rubbed sage rather than fresh; the recipe does not say. If using fresh, chop about a tablespoon. Stale ground sage will give little flavour.
- Keep it loosePack the cavity of the goose lightly. Potato mash is dense and will not expand, so a tightly stuffed bird slows heat penetration and the centre of the stuffing sits in the danger zone far too long.
- Temperature checkIf stuffed inside the bird, the centre of the stuffing needs to reach 165F, which on a goose often means the breast overcooks first. Baking the stuffing in a buttered dish for 30-40 minutes at 350F, moistened with a little of the goose fat, avoids the conflict.
- YieldEnough for a 10-12 lb goose, or about six to eight servings as a side dish. It doubles without trouble.
Potato stuffing for goose belongs to the northern European tradition that came into American kitchens through German-speaking households, where roast goose was a Martinmas and Christmas bird and the stuffing existed largely to soak up the extraordinary quantity of fat a goose renders. Where an English cook might reach for breadcrumbs and an American one for cornbread, the potato version is generally traced to Germany and Alsace and is still associated in the United States with Pennsylvania Dutch cookery. Sage and onion are the constants across all of them: both are old partners to fatty poultry, sharp enough to cut the richness. The Butterick book, published by the pattern company as part of its broad domestic-instruction list, includes it.