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Traditional Christmas Goose


LoveToEatATL

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check out this menu! :wink:

We will start dinner with a seafood appetizer: Chilled Lobster and Oyster Cocktail with Cucumber Salad and Aquavit (the Danish, caraway flavored vodka). In comes the goose on a heavy silver platter ringed with sugared Satsuma oranges, the legs of Mr. Goose bedecked with frilly red and green stockings. We will pass a gravy boat filled with sweet yet slightly sour Chambord Conserve made from the luxurious blackberry liqueur of France, the perfect foil to the rich meat of the goose. The accompaniments to the goose will be dishes inspired by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Chestnut Spaetzle with Brown Butter and Sage and a Gratin of Belgian Endives. The finale will be not one, but three desserts. Our guests will have their choice to indulge in one, or all three: Warm Chocolate Cakes with Eggnog Crème Angláise and Peppermint Schnapps Ice Cream. Of course, the buffet table will display an array of holiday cakes, cookies, candies, fruits, cheeses and cracked nuts.

Of course that is the classic menu .. today, there are more restrained courses for Christmas meals ... :huh:

But wait! You mentioned Dickensian didn't you? Now this is a menu!! Even snuck in a ubiquitous latke

...Viennese Potato Pancakes  Made with pure canola oil. Simply heat and serve
:unsure:

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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I have only once cooked a goose. I was barely twenty at the time. My husband and I went to a farm that had advertised geese for sale.

We bought one, brought it home and killed it. My mother-in-law assisted with dressing the goose or maybe she killed. She was very good at processing birds.

I cooked the goose according to a recipe I found in my one cook book. It was barely edible.

I have never prepared another and if I mention one the whole family cringes.

I do want to make those chestnut spaetzle, though.

Edited by BarbaraY (log)
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If you want to be Dickensian, I would think that you should definitely begin with oysters of some kind-they could be raw, scalloped or in a stew... and you definitely will have to have Christmas Pudding, IMHO.

Plenty of nuts, cheese and port to finish- I lovely big stilton would be perfect. \

Let us know what to decide on!

The sea was angry that day my friends... like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli.

George Costanza

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I cook goose all the time - I've already cooked four this season, so I have some expertise here :)

There is one dish that *must* be served with goose: Potatoes fried in the goose's fat. They are the culinary form of heroin. There are other things you can fry in goose fat, all of which I recommend - red cabbage, fennel root, mushrooms - they're all great, but potatoes are king.

As for cooking the goose itself, I buy the largest goose available (these tend to have more fat) prick the skin all over, salt it well, both inside and out, and add 22 oz of water to the roasting pan. I roast the goose uncovered for 5 hours at 250 degrees, then 1 hour at 350 (until the skin crisps.)

If this is for a fancy dinner, you'll probably have to carve the goose, which is a shame. The prefered way to eat goose is to rip the meat from the bones so that it comes off in long strands. This is especially true for the breast meat which can be dry and tough when sliced across the grain, but is rich and succulent when pulled off and eaten immediately, goose fat dripping down your arms.

Oh, and did I mention how good the fat is? ;)

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Yup. Fried potatoes and red cabbage. The theory is that the acid in the cabbage helps with disgesting all that goose fat!

Do NOT throw away the goosefat. My grandmother used to have a special crock into which she put the goose cracklins on the bottom and then covered it to the brim with the fat. So we'd have our goose dinner at noon and then "Ganzefett mit Schwarzbrott" ( with a liberal sprinkling of salt) for supper. It was considered rude to try to dig up all that great cracklin from the bottom of the crock!!

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The chestnut spaetzle sound so good--but a very good point has been brought up regarding the roasted potatoes. They would probably be the best anyone has eaten. Red cabbage also sounds very traditional (Germanic) and tasty.

For the rest of the menu, perhaps, also incorporating annatstee's suggstions:

cold, briny oysters on the half shell with wedges of lemon

watercress soup (pureed with or without cream)

the main attraction + goose fat roasted potatoes and sweet and sour red cabbage as suggested above

tangerine sorbet with cloves or an ambrosia made with fresh coconut and oranges

a raspberry trifle or a plum pudding with hard sauce

(Less compeletely traditional but in keeping with the menu might be a quince tart--Saveur had a great recipe two years ago in which this was featured after a British hunt day. I've made the tart and it is beautful and delicious).

Port service with Stilton and walnuts

(Another option for incorporating oysters and greenery into the menu in a different way would be to make an oyster stew as annanstee suggested and to then follow this with a green salad of some sort--perhaps watercress or spinach salad with walnuts and pomagranate seeds.)

It is blending cultures a bit but somehow it seems festive and right to me. Having the citrus course may not only be refreshing after the rich main dish, but it also evokes older times when getting tropical fruits was a special treat at the holidays.

Will you get to enjoy the goose yourself with family and friends or is this for your personal cheffing clients? I hope you get to eat it!

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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Just saw a great dessert possibility mentioned in another context on jamiemaw's awesome foodblog currently underway:

chestnut souflee with gingered quince

which also made me think of:

marron glace ice cream as nice first dessert

or

for a second dessert

a rich chocolate chestnut cake or Mont Blanc...

(I guess I'm trying to work chestnut back into the menu... :smile: )

Edited by ludja (log)

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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