No. 1948

Goose, German Style—Roasted

Oie Rotie a l'Allemande

Prepare and cook the goose the same as for stuffed with chestnuts (No. 1950), but instead of filling with chestnut forcemeat, substitute ten apples, peeled, quartered, cored and cooked in a vessel with six ounces of dried currants and four ounces of seeded raisins, half a pound of bread-crumbs, cinnamon and two whole eggs. Mince well a red cabbage after carefully removing all the hard parts and lay it in a saucepan with stock (No. 194a), from which the fat has not been removed, and salt, cook slowly until ready to serve, then put in a tablespoonful of vinegar, garnish around the goose with this cabbage and outside of it set a string of small broiled sausages (No. 754).

← No. 1947 Goose a la Thieblin—Roasted Duck & Goose No. 1949 Geese Giblets with Turnips →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes in cross-references, assuming you have No. 1950 open beside you: a goose trussed, seasoned, stuffed and roasted, here filled with spiced apple and dried fruit instead of chestnut forcemeat. The apple stuffing and the red cabbage are the whole point, and both need a little translating.

The roasting itselfSince the reference recipe is not on this page: a 10-12 lb goose, pricked through the skin over the breast and thighs, roasts at 325-350F for roughly 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until the thigh reaches 175F and the stuffing centre 165F. Pour off the rendered fat two or three times during cooking and keep it; a bird this size will usually give several cupfuls, and it is excellent potato fat.
Vinegar timing is the hingeThe original adds the tablespoon of vinegar only at the end. Red cabbage holds its colour through acid, not through cooking, so cabbage stewed long in plain stock turns a dull blue-violet. Add the vinegar (or a little of the apple) at the start if you want the colour, and correct with more at the finish.
Ten apples is a lot of stuffingTen peeled quartered apples plus half a pound of crumbs and the fruit will more than fill a goose. Bake the surplus in a buttered dish alongside for about 40 minutes; overpacking the cavity is what leaves stuffing underdone at the centre.
Apples to useChoose a variety that holds shape rather than collapsing to sauce, such as Braeburn or Boskoop; Bramleys give the tartness but will fall to purée. The nineteenth-century "cooked in a vessel" most likely means gently stewed in a covered pan with almost no liquid, rather than boiled soft.
Dried currantsSix ounces of dried currants means the small dark Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants and not raisins. If you cannot find them, use more of the seeded raisins, chopped.
Seeded raisins"Seeded" here means the seeds have been removed by hand, which was ordinary kitchen work before seedless grapes became standard. Any modern seedless raisin does the job.
Stock with the fat left inThe instruction not to skim is deliberate: the fat carries the cabbage. Use a rich brown or poultry stock and count on a cup or so, added a little at a time, so the cabbage braises rather than boils. Two hours at a bare simmer is not too long.
The sausagesNo. 754 is a cross-reference to Ranhofer's own sausage recipe, not reproduced here. Small fresh sausages, cocktail-size chipolatas grilled or pan-browned until firm, will read correctly as a ring around the cabbage.
YieldA goose gives far less meat per pound than a turkey. This serves six, eight if the cabbage, sausages and stuffing are generous.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete professional reference, and its French kitchen vocabulary sits over a menu that had to please American diners of many backgrounds. "A l'allemande" here is a shorthand for exactly the combination this recipe sets out: goose with apple and dried fruit inside, braised red cabbage around it, sausages outside that. It is the standard German and Austrian festive goose, the sort eaten at Martinmas and Christmas, rendered in the terse numbered style of a New York hotel kitchen. Goose was the older festive bird across northern Europe long before turkey displaced it, valued as much for the fat it yielded as for the meat, and the sweet-sour cabbage exists to cut that richness. The whole arrangement, meat ringed by cabbage and then by sausages, reflects the service style of the period, where a dish came to the table as a composed garnished piece rather than as separate vegetables in bowls.