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Gosling, Mount Vernon
Singe, cut off the head and feet of a tender, small gosling of about six pounds. Neatly draw, wipe dry and keep the fat on a plate. Place three freshly boiled, peeled potatoes in a mortar, with one finely minced white onion fried in a teaspoon of butter for five minutes, two egg yolks, half ounce butter, half teaspoon salt, three saltspoons white pepper and saltspoon nutmeg; pound to a paste, then stuff the gosling with the mixture, tightly truss, season with one and a half teaspoons salt and half teaspoon pepper. Place the gosling on a roasting tin with its own fat, pour one tablespoon melted butter on the surface of the bird and set in the oven for thirty five minutes. Peel and core six medium apples. Season with a half teaspoon salt, one teaspoon sugar and two saltspoons white pepper. Arrange the apples around the gosling in the pan and roast for thirty minutes more; turn and baste with its own drippings occasionally. Remove, dress the gosling on a large hot dish, untruss and arrange the apples on the sides of the dish. Place one and a half gills demi-glace with two tablespoons each sherry and currant jelly in a small saucepan, mix well, let boil for ten minutes, then pour it over the goose and serve.
A roast young goose with a potato forcemeat, baked apples and a fortified pan sauce. The original assumes a butcher's bird arriving whole and a cook who knows her own oven, so the two things it omits are the temperature and any real check on doneness.
- Saltspoons and gillsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so "three saltspoons white pepper" is about 3/4 teaspoon. A gill is half a cup, making one and a half gills of demi-glace 3/4 cup.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, and the book never specifies one. The short roasting time only works in a hot oven; 400-425F is a reasonable modern reading, but it is an inference and not the author's instruction.
- The timing will not doSixty-five minutes total is short for a 6 lb bird, even a young one. Cook to 165-170F in the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone, and expect closer to an hour and three quarters. Goose looks done long before it is.
- Buying the birdA true gosling of 6 lb is a spring bird, rarely stocked; a young goose is usually 8-10 lb and will need proportionally longer. The singeing, drawing, and removal of head and feet are all done for you now. Ask for the loose abdominal fat, which is what the recipe means by "its own fat".
- Fat managementGoose renders a great deal of fat. Set the bird on a rack so the potato stuffing is not sitting in grease, and pour off the fat as it accumulates rather than letting the apples poach in it. Keep the fat; it is the best roasting medium in the kitchen.
- The stuffingBoiled potato pounded with fried onion and egg yolk is a dense paste, not a bread stuffing. A ricer or food mill gives a smoother result than a mortar and avoids the gluey texture a food processor produces. Because it contains raw yolk and sits in the cavity, take it to 165F as well.
- ApplesPeeled and cored whole apples will collapse in half an hour of hot roasting unless you choose a firm variety. Braeburn or Granny Smith hold their shape; a soft eating apple will slump into sauce.
- Demi-glaceBuy it or reduce good brown stock hard. The ten-minute boil reduces the mixture and cooks off the raw alcohol from the sherry; do not shorten it.
- YieldA 6 lb goose has less meat on it than the weight suggests. Four generous servings, with the stuffing and apples doing much of the work.
The International Cook Book is the work of Alexander Filippini, long a cook at Delmonico's in New York, and it follows the restaurant habit of hanging a place name on a garnish so that a familiar dish reads as a distinct one. What "Mount Vernon" is meant to signal here is not explained in the book; the apples are the obvious candidate, and George Washington's estate on the Potomac did keep orchards and make cider. Roast goose stuffed with potato and served with apples is Central and Northern European, a standard Martinmas and Christmas bird of Germany, Bohemia and Scandinavia. What the recipe does show is the period's confidence in young poultry: a six-pound gosling was a seasonal bird, expected in spring and early summer, and it was priced and cooked quite differently from the heavy autumn goose that had been fattened for months.