Anyone ever had Goose?

[OldLady]

I love sauces, especially when they are a combo of sweet and spicy.

The problem I find is that sweet and sour is 98% sweet. There's no balance. Really good sweet and sour, I agree, is super good on your favorite food--chicken.

Not necessarily sweet and sour. There are other hot and sweet sauces that really are hot and sweet, like honey chipotle. I also make my own glaze for chicken thighs and I make it sweet with ketchup and brown sugar and honey and a few other ingredients, and then I add some hot pepper flakes to it so it's spicy and sweet. I like that combo a lot.

I had wings with Citrus Chipotle sauce the other day and it was awesome.

 

[OldLady]

One slip in six pages isn't bad for around here. We'll ignore it I hope.
Does your family serve Arab dishes at Thanksgiving as well? My stepdad's family was Swedish and as well as the turkey, they always served that pickled herring stuff and some other Swedish delicacies that tbh I never liked.

My mother is from Singapore and she makes offal (sounds like awful and is), particularly intestines or tripe.

Cooking Offal in Southeast Asia

Oh, poor poor you! I have never had it but from the sounds of it, I wouldn't even want the smell of it in the dining room.

Tripe is delicious, and traditionally eaten almost everywhere.

Not so much in this neck of the woods. If we run out of meat we go dig clams, not eat intestines.
I guess it's what you get used to, though. In the south, chitlins is very popular with some. I just wouldn't want it at the Thanksgiving table myself.

Beef tripe stew is an old traditional dish in New England (and pretty much everywhere else).

Okay! Maybe I've heard of it and thought it was a kind of fish.
I like some stuff that's not very popular too, like lima beans. If you like it, I take your word for it.

 

[Crixus]

One slip in six pages isn't bad for around here. We'll ignore it I hope.
Does your family serve Arab dishes at Thanksgiving as well? My stepdad's family was Swedish and as well as the turkey, they always served that pickled herring stuff and some other Swedish delicacies that tbh I never liked.

My mother is from Singapore and she makes offal (sounds like awful and is), particularly intestines or tripe.

Cooking Offal in Southeast Asia

Oh, poor poor you! I have never had it but from the sounds of it, I wouldn't even want the smell of it in the dining room.

Tripe is delicious, and traditionally eaten almost everywhere.

Not so much in this neck of the woods. If we run out of meat we go dig clams, not eat intestines.
I guess it's what you get used to, though. In the south, chitlins is very popular with some. I just wouldn't want it at the Thanksgiving table myself.

Beef tripe stew is an old traditional dish in New England (and pretty much everywhere else).

You know, it seems every culture has a recipe for cow and pig innards. I like menado.

 

[SeaGal]

I went to an incredibly fine dining French inspired Christmas Eve dinner at a fancy restaurant once and they served what they called a "bread pudding" that was almost exactly my grandmother's stuffing. I could have hugged the chef.
No giblets, chestnuts, apples or oysters. Just fine ground bread, celery, onions and herbs plus butter and broth. The celery and the crust on the top saves it from being completely baby food. Of course, no crust on the stuffing from inside the bird.

My grandmother's stuffing also...and the way I still make it today, with the addition of beaten eggs. We use stale bread and pull it into small pieces. Kind of a rite of passage for the kids as they grew - sitting around the kitchen table tearing the bread over a large bowl as the giblets are simmering. Giblets for the gravy, broth for the stuffing.

I've never eaten goose - but I've had this dream - standing in the cold and dark of a snowy winter day looking through a frosted window to the scene inside of a family gathered around a cheery fire, the mantle decorated with fresh pine boughs and a table laden with all kinds of Christmas goodies - and the centerpiece - a roasted goose with crispy browned skin, surrounded on the platter by roasted apples and chestnuts.

Must be a Dickens thing.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Goose is very similar to duck unfortunately most people do not know how to cook wild fowl

 

[Windparadox]

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Outside of a few culinary interests I have, cooking and baking is not my forte. Buttering bread is too much like cooking. My own kids knew enough never to ask me to bake anything for school.

 

[SeaGal]

You know, it seems every culture has a recipe for cow and pig innards. I like menado.

In the rural south many of us still raise our own pigs. Used to be said we'd eat everything but the squeal. Don't recall ever eating chitlins though. The intestines were used for sausage casings - cleaning was labor intensive and we now buy the natural casings. Pork liver is delicious, if you like liver. It is milder and sweeter than beef...and an important ingredient for the making of boudin.

Many cooking traditions have been lost as we are losing the older generation. One such dish is head cheese...made by boiling down the whole head of a hog...picking the meat, adding spices and some of the natural gelatin in the broth, forming a loaf and wrapping it. Very tasty.

I attempted making it once - there is a good bit of cleaning involved...and each day for three days I'd remove the paper wrapped head from the frig - contemplate the task of cleaning - wrapped it up and put it back in the frig. On the fourth day I buried it - and never attempted it again.

 

[ChrisL]

Goose is very similar to duck unfortunately most people do not know how to cook wild fowl

Wouldn't you cook it in the same way that you cook a chicken or a turkey?

 

[Likkmee]

Goose is very similar to duck unfortunately most people do not know how to cook wild fowl

Wouldn't you cook it in the same way that you cook a chicken or a turkey?

Not at all. It needs about a 24 hour refrigerated brine @3%.THEN it goes in smoke for an hour and gets brought up to temp on a regular oven to finish. Insert herbs of choice in the brine as well as the cavity. Bay, sage, thyme, the usual.. Rubs are good. It's a " cold water bird", per se, so it IS quite fatty.It absorbs flavors great.
Commercial turkey needs to be injected since it's so dense. I only eat Mexican turkey once a year. Blue corn raised. Pretty clean .....so.....they...say

 

[Crixus]

Goose is very similar to duck unfortunately most people do not know how to cook wild fowl

Wouldn't you cook it in the same way that you cook a chicken or a turkey?

Not at all. It needs about a 24 hour refrigerated brine @3%.THEN it goes in smoke for an hour and gets brought up to temp on a regular oven to finish. Insert herbs of choice in the brine as well as the cavity. Bay, sage, thyme, the usual.. Rubs are good. It's a " cold water bird", per se, so it IS quite fatty.It absorbs flavors great.
Commercial turkey needs to be injected since it's so dense. I only eat Mexican turkey once a year. Blue corn raised. Pretty clean .....so.....they...say

I thought we were making America great, here YOU are buying Mexican turkey. Just kidding.

 

[OldLady]

I went to an incredibly fine dining French inspired Christmas Eve dinner at a fancy restaurant once and they served what they called a "bread pudding" that was almost exactly my grandmother's stuffing. I could have hugged the chef.
No giblets, chestnuts, apples or oysters. Just fine ground bread, celery, onions and herbs plus butter and broth. The celery and the crust on the top saves it from being completely baby food. Of course, no crust on the stuffing from inside the bird.

My grandmother's stuffing also...and the way I still make it today, with the addition of beaten eggs. We use stale bread and pull it into small pieces. Kind of a rite of passage for the kids as they grew - sitting around the kitchen table tearing the bread over a large bowl as the giblets are simmering. Giblets for the gravy, broth for the stuffing.

I've never eaten goose - but I've had this dream - standing in the cold and dark of a snowy winter day looking through a frosted window to the scene inside of a family gathered around a cheery fire, the mantle decorated with fresh pine boughs and a table laden with all kinds of Christmas goodies - and the centerpiece - a roasted goose with crispy browned skin, surrounded on the platter by roasted apples and chestnuts.

Must be a Dickens thing.

I never heard of eggs in the stuffing--I'm sure it makes it really moist.

 

[SeaGal]

I never heard of eggs in the stuffing--I'm sure it makes it really moist.

Never thought to ask why.

Maybe because the bread is stale and torn into pieces instead of ground up. It does make it moist, but still has the crust as you described when baked as a separate dish,

 

[ChrisL]

For my stuffing recipe, I wet half of the bread and leave the other half dry. Not a lot, just enough to make it soft but not mushy.

 

[Syriusly]

I've never had it, seen it offered on a restaurant menu or served at anyone's home or for sale at the supermarket.
Just wondering what domestic goose tastes like and why it seems to be shunned, at least in the Northeast?

(I had wild goose, once, smoked, at a Christmas buffet. That's not what I'm talking about, though.)

Goose breast can be really fantastic.

I cooked one whole Goose for Thanksgiving one year- and it was okay- but we didn't bother doing it again.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Goose is very similar to duck unfortunately most people do not know how to cook wild fowl

Wouldn't you cook it in the same way that you cook a chicken or a turkey?

Nope.

Goose, duck and other game birds are best served medium rare.

 

[ChrisL]

Goose is very similar to duck unfortunately most people do not know how to cook wild fowl

Wouldn't you cook it in the same way that you cook a chicken or a turkey?

Nope.

Goose, duck and other game birds are best served medium rare.

If that was all, you could just cook it for a shorter time. Like with steak, you don't change the cooking method for medium rare, you just cook it a little longer than rare and a little shorter than well done.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Goose is very similar to duck unfortunately most people do not know how to cook wild fowl

Wouldn't you cook it in the same way that you cook a chicken or a turkey?

Nope.

Goose, duck and other game birds are best served medium rare.

If that was all, you could just cook it for a shorter time. Like with steak, you don't change the cooking method for medium rare, you just cook it a little longer than rare and a little shorter than well done.

when you overcook game meats you get that liver taste that most people don't like.

and chicken and turkeys are cooked to well done so no you do not cook game birds the same.

 

[ChrisL]

Goose is very similar to duck unfortunately most people do not know how to cook wild fowl

Wouldn't you cook it in the same way that you cook a chicken or a turkey?

Nope.

Goose, duck and other game birds are best served medium rare.

If that was all, you could just cook it for a shorter time. Like with steak, you don't change the cooking method for medium rare, you just cook it a little longer than rare and a little shorter than well done.

when you overcook game meats you get that liver taste that most people don't like.

and chicken and turkeys are cooked to well done so no you do not cook game birds the same.

Sure, well I meant the same method, roasting it in an oven.

 

[ChrisL]

Goose is very similar to duck unfortunately most people do not know how to cook wild fowl

Wouldn't you cook it in the same way that you cook a chicken or a turkey?

Nope.

Goose, duck and other game birds are best served medium rare.

If that was all, you could just cook it for a shorter time. Like with steak, you don't change the cooking method for medium rare, you just cook it a little longer than rare and a little shorter than well done.

when you overcook game meats you get that liver taste that most people don't like.

and chicken and turkeys are cooked to well done so no you do not cook game birds the same.

If you overcook chicken or turkey, it's not so great either. It gets all dried up and stringy. Another way to take away a gamy flavor is to soak the meat in water or milk. I use milk for venison. I only soak it for about 20 minutes/1/2 hour, and it seems to really work.

 

[usmbguest5318]

I've never had it, seen it offered on a restaurant menu or served at anyone's home or for sale at the supermarket.
Just wondering what domestic goose tastes like and why it seems to be shunned, at least in the Northeast?

(I had wild goose, once, smoked, at a Christmas buffet. That's not what I'm talking about, though.)

Goose tastes like goose. I know that's not terribly helpful, but it's hard to describe the flavor of something that tastes like itself and not like something else. The best I can say is that it seems to me like dark meat chicken, duck and turkey mixed. What's that taste like? Well, it tastes like goose. LOL

There is no white meat on geese, and the taste is richer than chicken or turkey, and mildly "gamey" if it's wild, less so, of course, if farm-raised. So if you're having goose, when considering accompaniments, choose things that complement steak, lamb or duck. As for sauces, orange, plum and/or cherry cannot be beat.

Perhaps the most useful thing I can say is that the flavor isn't likely to offend you; it's different yet close enough to other things you've had that unless you're have a very limited palate, you'll have no trouble eating it. Overdone roasted goose will have a metallic taste, and you probably won't much care for it.

FWIW, if you're going to be eating wild goose at this time of year, eat it sauteed (ideally sous-vide to medium rare and then finished with a quick saute [1]) rather than roasted. Come late winter, roasted is the way to go because they've fattened up for the trip north, so roasting doesn't tend to dry and overcook the meat. This time year, most wild geese are burning their fat stores to make the trip south. If the goose is farm-raised, it's likely to be fattened whenever it's harvested.

So now you know what to ask the waiter -- Is it wild or farm-raised? If wild, has it been roasted, sous-vide, sauteed, all or some of those methods, or some other cooking method used? -- if you see goose on a menu. Frankly, were I to see "roasted wild goose" on a fall or early winter menu and didn't have absolute confidence in the chef -- both his/her cooking skill and his/her ability to transfer to and obtain from his/her staff that skill level with goose -- I'd either choose something else or choose a different restaurant at which to order wild goose. Some proteins aren't seasonal in any way, others are. Wild goose is one that is. (So is wild "anything else" that migrates or hibernates.)


Note:

1. A proper vacuum sealed cook is the best way to sous-vide cook food; however, if one is willing to go endure/risk the trial-and-error approach, one can approximate sous-vide by pressing as much air as possible from a heavy-duty ziplock bag and gently boiling the package. It's critical to get damn near all the air out of the bag, however, because if you don't when the air heats, it may expand and break the seal, in which case one'll end up with boiled and overdry/overcooked food which'll land you in the same place had you roasted it and overcooked it.