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Braised Gosling
Pluck, draw and singe a gosling and stuff it with forcemeat made with pork slightly seasoned and mixed with a little parsley and breadcrumbs; sew it up, chop off the leg bones and pinions at the joints and truss it; put the fat from the gosling at the bottom of a saucepan with a few vegetables cut in slices, place the gosling on these and pour in a pint of broth with a little salt and reduce the liquor over a brisk fire; pour in half a bottle of wine and a little more broth to half the height of the bird; drop in a few cloves and peppercorns and a bunch of sweet herbs. Boil up and remove the pan to a moderate fire, cover the goose with buttered paper, baste often and put the lid on the pan. Place a few hot ashes on the top and braise for three hours. When done pour off the stock, skim off the fat, put the fat back with the goose into the pan, keeping it hot, and reduce the stock to half-glaze in another saucepan; add a little brown sauce to thicken it, reduce again, stir well, add a teacupful of Burgundy and keep it hot in the bain-marie. Untruss the goose, place it on a hot dish and garnish with cooked glazed chestnuts, arranged alternately in groups with small cooked sausages. Pour a little of the sauce over the goose, put a paper ruffle on each leg, and serve with the rest of the sauce in a boat.
A classical French braise written for a coal range and a braising pan with a recessed lid. The method translates cleanly to a Dutch oven in a low oven, but the bird and a few of the terms need explaining.
- The goslingA gosling here is a young goose, not a duckling, and lighter than a mature bird; period sources vary on weight. Supermarkets rarely stock one; order from a butcher or use a frozen young goose. Plucking, drawing and singeing are done for you.
- Hot ashes on the lidThe pan Oscar assumes is a braisière with a dished lid meant to hold live coals, giving heat from above as well as below. A heavy covered Dutch oven in a 325F oven does the same job; there is no need to put anything on the lid.
- Buttered paperA cartouche of buttered parchment laid directly on the bird under the lid. It keeps the exposed breast from drying and stops a skin forming on the braise.
- Half a bottle of wine, and the teacupfulHalf a bottle is 375 ml. A teacupful in this period is about 4 to 6 fl oz, so read the finishing Burgundy as roughly half to three-quarters of a cup. The pint of broth is 2 cups if you read it American, 20 fl oz if English; either works, since you are told to reduce it anyway.
- Half-glaze and brown sauceHalf-glaze is demi-glace: the strained braising liquid reduced until it coats a spoon. The brown sauce is espagnole, which today is often replaced with a reduced veal or goose stock, or a little beurre manie if the reduction alone will not thicken.
- Doneness, not the clockThree hours is a fair estimate for a large bird, but goose legs are worked muscle and want 180-190F internal to go tender, while the pork forcemeat in the cavity must reach at least 165F. Check both with a thermometer rather than trusting the time.
- The fatGoose renders a great deal of fat. Skim it off the stock as directed, but rather than returning all of it to the pan, save most of it; it keeps for months refrigerated and is the best thing to roast potatoes in.
- Garnish and yieldVacuum-packed cooked chestnuts, warmed in butter and a spoonful of the glaze, stand in for cooked glazed chestnuts. Small sausages means chipolata-sized. Expect perhaps four to six servings, less than the weight suggests, since goose carries a lot of fat and frame.
Oscar Tschirky was never formally the chef of the Waldorf, but as maitre d'hotel he compiled its 1896 cookbook, and pages like this one show how thoroughly the grand American hotel kitchen ran on French method. Braising a goose in its own fat with wine, mirepoix and a sealed lid weighted with coals is straight out of the nineteenth-century classical repertoire, and the finish of demi-glace, glazed chestnuts and chipolatas is the standard garnish that French cooking pairs with goose and turkey alike. Goose was seasonal, autumn and winter fare, associated in the older English calendar with Michaelmas, and a gosling was prized because a mature goose is tough enough to require exactly this kind of long, moist cooking. The paper ruffles on the legs are pure dining-room theatre of the period, a way of making a carved bird presentable when it was brought whole to a table of guests.