Butta Buns

If you ever get a chance to try goose, do NOT pass it up. Today being Easter (or Feaster in my case, being an absolute heathen), we celebrated with our bi-annual roast goose dinner. So how did an American end up with such an English dish? A few years ago during a layover in England, I picked up a Jilly Cooper novel. The British version of Olivia Goldsmith, she is the literary equivalent to crack cocaine. I ended up buying all of her novels through Ebay. My favorite of all her characters is Taggie Campbell-Black, a marvelous and angelic cook. It drove me ducky trying to figure out some of the food items mentioned. How much does the average American know about kedgeree, parsnips, or Pimm’s? In my case, not a lot. The year was 1998, Google was still not born and my grasp of Internet search engines was somewhat limited. It took some years to finally solve the mystery of kedgeree. I was reduced to asking strangers on the subway who spoke with English accents. (It annoys me no end when people I don’t know randomly ask me questions about Asian foods, so perhaps that was payback. Or I’m a flaming hypocrite. Take your pick.) Christmas goose was mentioned a few times in the novels that had me intrigued. The wonderful place we get our food from carries goose during the holidays so I ventured to get one. And instantly fell in love.

A few things about goose….

The grease
Geese fly long distances so they need to have some extra junk in the trunk to keep going. It is an intercontinental bird after all. Roast in a large, deep pan fitted with a rack. I usually have one and a half pickle jars full of leftover goose fat. It is liquid gold, people! Make sure you save some. The stuff keeps well in the freezer. I pour 2 tablespoons of melted fat into popover batter, use it to sauté mushrooms, or stir fries, etc. One of these days, I’m going off the deep end and using it for French fries.

Size
It is deceptively large because of the cavity. A 12lb bird isn’t going to feed 12 people. Q and I may just be goose heads but a 10 pounder like we had today didn’t go very far. It’s a good idea to serve a lot of hearty sides like dressing/stuffing, taters, and the like so nobody leaves the table hungry.

Taste
It’s all dark meat, every single speck of it. Rich is a good adjective. And the skin is a miracle. Crispity, crunchity, it crackles between the teeth ever so pleasantly. It’s not unlike dark turkey meat and more like duck. Very good stuff. One bite of goose is worth 10 of chicken, duck, turkey, capon, game hen…..did I mention we’re goose heads here?

The only strenuous part is the excess fat removal before it goes in the oven. And I’ll spare y’all the gruesome pictures from this morning of me wrestling the neck off with a pair of scissors. Someone forgot that little detail along with a few spare feathers that were left on the wings. I cut a lot of excess fat around and inside the cavity. See the pic below.

The next step is very important. Prick the skin all over with a fork, so that the fat layers are pierced but not the meat. That helps the fat melt off of it better. Salt and pepper the whole thing. I don’t recommend stuffing this type of bird because the legs are rather short and hard to tie together. That and you’ll end up with a very greasy stuffing. Good as it is, it would probably be like biting into a piece of toast that’s soggy with bacon grease. If that sounds sexy, then by all means go for it.

Into the oven it goes at 325F, 15 minutes per pound. Like any other poultry, test with a thermometer and let it rest for 20-30 minutes before carving.

Ahhh goosie, only 9 more months until we meat, er meet, again.

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