Christmas Goose is a traditional British recipe for a classic recipe for the traditional Christmas roast goose with a sage and onion stuffing of the Victorian period. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Christmas Goose.
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It was Dickens who really popularized the use of turkey as the central bird on the British Christmas table. Originally, venison would have been the centrepiece. From about the 1660s onwards goose became the central bird and goose was an important Christmas bird up until the 1950s. My grandmother always had a Christmas goose and my aunt still cooks goose for Christmas. This recipe is based on her method. The stuffing is the basic classic sage and onion.
The goose is a fatty bird, but the fat is excellent for roasting and makes the best possible roast potatoes. So save all the goose fat and pot it for later use.
Ingredients:
1 oven-ready goose (about 4.5kg)
For the Stuffing:
50g butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
150g fresh white breadcrumbs
4 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
1 tsp salt
freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
Method:
Melt the butter in a pan, add the onion and cook gently for about 5 minutes or until soft but not coloured. Stir in the breadcrumbs then turn into a bowl and mix with the sage leaves, salt and black pepper.
Use this mixture to stuff the goose then sit on a rack over a large roasting tin. Prick the bird all over with a skewer to ensure that the fat can flow freely during cooking then season liberally with salt and black pepper. Transfer to the centre of an oven pre-heated to 210°C and roast for 20 minutes.
After this time, drain off any fat (reserve this) then cover the breast of the bird with buttered cooking foil, reduce the oven temperature to 160°C, return the goose to the oven and continue cooking for between 3 1/2 and 4 hours more, or until the goose is thoroughly cooked through and the juices in the thickest part of the thigh run clear when pierced with a skewer.
Remove the foil from the breast for the final 20 minutes of cooking to ensure that the skin is really crisp.
Allow to rest for 15 minutes before carving the bird.
