No. 1951

Gosling a la Soyer

Oison a la Soyer

Draw, singe, and clean well a young goose; truss, filling the inside with a dressing made of a pound of finely chopped beef suet, a pound of soaked bread-crumbs, having all the water extracted, half a pound of butter, some onions fried in butter with the goose liver cut in small squares, sage, thyme, basil, marjoram, parsley, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Roast the goose either on the spit or in the oven for an hour and a half to two hours, basting it frequently. When done, dish it up on top of a puree of apples seasoned with sugar and nutmeg. Peel some apples cut in four; range on a generously buttered dish, sprinkled over with sugar, and cook for ten minutes in the hot oven, and lay around the goose. Serve separate a sauce prepared with the glaze from the dripping pan detaching it with a little gravy (No. 404), strain and skim; mix in gradually some espagnole sauce (No. 414) in which currant jelly has been dissolved; strain the whole through a sieve, and serve it in a sauce-boat to accompany the goose.

← No. 1950 Goose Stuffed with Chestnuts and with Sausag Duck & Goose No. 1952 Roast Gosling or Mongrel Goose →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a young goose of six to eight pounds, a spit or coal range, and a kitchen with espagnole and meat glaze already on hand. The dish works in a modern oven, but the quantities and the sauce need translating.

What a gosling isA gosling is a goose under about six months old, usually 6-8 lb dressed, and far more tender than a mature bird. Supermarket geese are typically 9-12 lb and will need closer to three hours; the 1.5-2 hour timing here only applies to a genuinely small bird.
Halve the stuffingA pound of suet, a pound of breadcrumbs and half a pound of butter makes something like two to three quarts of dressing, more than a gosling will hold. Half quantities fill a gosling comfortably, and less butter is better since the goose renders a great deal of its own fat.
Stuffing temperatureDressing packed inside a bird heats slowly. Take the thigh to 165F and check the centre of the stuffing at the same mark, or bake most of the dressing in a buttered dish alongside and put only a loose spoonful in the cavity.
Oven heatStart at 425F for 20 minutes to set and colour the skin, then drop to 350F for the remainder. Ranhofer gives no figure for the 'hot oven' he calls for with the apple quarters; something around 425F answers, and ten minutes suits firm apples cut in four.
Render the fatPrick the skin over the breast and thighs before roasting and pour the fat out of the pan two or three times. Frequent basting matters less than draining; a goose that sits in its own fat steams rather than crisps, and the drained fat is worth keeping.
The sauce without espagnoleNo. 404 is a plain brown gravy and No. 414 the classic espagnole, a long-simmered brown sauce thickened with roux. A good reduced brown stock or veal demi-glace stands in: deglaze the roasting pan, skim it hard, then whisk in the demi-glace with a spoonful or two of red currant jelly and strain.
Two apple preparationsThe recipe calls for both a purée seasoned with sugar and nutmeg to sit under the bird and roasted quarters to ring it. The purée is simply apples cooked down soft and sieved; make it first, since it holds well and reheats.
YieldA gosling of this size serves four to six. Goose carves badly compared with turkey, with little breast relative to frame, so plan on generous stuffing and apples to fill out the plate.

A Little History

The name honours Alexis Soyer (1810-1858), the French-born chef of the Reform Club in London, who is often said to have been the most famous cook in the English-speaking world in the mid-nineteenth century and whose habit of attaching his name to dishes is traditionally described as widely imitated. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, compiled The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete professional reference, and a garnish of apple pur/with roasted apple quarters and a currant-jelly brown sauce reads as a French kitchen's version of the English roast goose with apple sauce that Soyer cooked for London clubmen. Goose was seasonal eating: goslings came to market in spring and early summer, mature birds at Michaelmas and Christmas, and cookbooks of the period distinguish carefully between the two and give them separate recipes, as Ranhofer does in the entries either side of this one.