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Potted Goose
Singe and draw a goose, and remove the bones. To fill a potting pan seven inches in diameter the goose should weigh about four pounds when cleaned and without the giblets. Lard the breast with strips of fat bacon and sprinkle over with a little salt and pepper. Remove the sinews from the thighs, cut off the flesh, add to it eight ounces of fillet of veal and one pound of fat bacon, chop them all up and pound in a mortar together with one ounce of spiced salt. Put a layer of this mixture at the bottom of the pan. Spread out the goose with the skin part downwards, dust it over with a little more spiced salt, put another layer of the veal mixture in the inside of it, roll it around and put it in the pan; cover over with more of the veal mixture, put a few slices of bacon on the top, place a bay leaf on this, put the lid on the pan and set it in a large saucepan, pour in water to about two inches in depth, place the saucepan in the oven and cook for three hours. When the goose is done, which can be ascertained by putting a trussing needle into it, take it out, let it get cold and cover over in the dish with a layer of the melted fat of the goose. Let it remain for a day, and it will then be ready for use.
This is a terrine in the older sense of the word: a boned bird packed in forcemeat, cooked in a water bath, then sealed under its own fat. Nothing about the method is difficult, but several of Oscar's terms and quantities need translating.
- The panA "potting pan" seven inches in diameter is a lidded terrine mould. The recipe gives no depth, so the capacity can only be estimated, somewhere in the region of 1.5 to 2 quarts. Any deep covered casserole of that sort of capacity works; if the lid is loose, seal with foil so steam does not escape into the water bath.
- Spiced saltOscar's sel épicé is a house mixture of salt with pepper, nutmeg, clove, bay, thyme and often a small proportion of saltpetre. Since the book gives no formula here and the nitrate proportion is unknown, use a plain seasoned salt you have measured yourself rather than assuming a cured-meat blend. One ounce of it to the roughly two pounds of forcemeat this recipe makes is on the firm side of well seasoned, which is correct for something eaten cold.
- Oven and water bathThe recipe names no oven temperature. A moderate oven, somewhere around 325 to 350F, suits a bain-marie of this kind. Check the water level at least once during the three hours and top up with boiling water; if it cooks dry the outside of the terrine will overcook before the centre sets.
- Goose sizeA four-pound dressed goose is small by current standards, where market birds run eight to twelve pounds. Two ducks of about two pounds each dressed, boned the same way, fill a seven-inch mould more realistically, or scale the forcemeat up and use a larger terrine for a full-sized goose.
- DonenessThe trussing needle test tells you very little. Take the centre of the forcemeat to 160 to 165F on an instant-read thermometer; three hours is about right for a mould this size but the reading is what settles it.
- LardingStrips of fat bacon threaded through the breast are there because goose breast is lean and dries in a long slow cook. Salt pork or plain pork back fat does the same job without the smoke; if all you have is thin modern streaky bacon, lay it over the breast instead of trying to thread it.
- Fillet of vealThe term is ambiguous: in French usage it points to the loin, while in English butchery of the period "fillet of veal" commonly meant the leg. Either way, boneless veal shoulder or loin chopped fine gives the same pale, mild forcemeat at far less cost. Pound in a mortar or pulse briefly in a food processor, keeping everything cold so the fat does not smear.
- The fat seal, and where to keep itThe layer of melted goose fat excludes air and keeps the surface from drying. It is not a preservative in the modern sense: refrigerate the terrine throughout the day of resting and after cutting, and treat it as a week's keeping at most.
- YieldA seven-inch mould gives roughly twelve to sixteen slices as a first course, served cold with bread, pickles and mustard.
Potting is the older English answer to the French terrine and pâté en croûte: meat cooked down, packed tight in a pot and sealed under a cap of clarified fat or butter so it could be carried, given as a gift or kept in a cool larder. Beef, ham, tongue and game were all usual subjects, and geese made particularly good sense because a fattened bird supplies both the meat and, in the rendered fat, its own sealing medium, and because a boned goose rolled around forcemeat slices into a handsome pattern of dark meat, pale veal and white fat. By the time Oscar Tschirky was the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel at the turn of the twentieth century, presiding over the dining rooms rather than the stoves, dishes like this belonged to the garde-manger, the cold larder department whose galantines, aspics and terrines furnished the buffet and the supper table rather than the hot service. The recipe's careful specification of pan diameter and bird weight is a hotel habit: a brigade making the same item week after week needs proportions that fill the mould exactly.