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Roast Goose with Golden Breadcrumb and Herb Stuffing

Christmas Roast Goose with Herb Stuffing

Allegra McEvedy came on Woman's Hour to show Emma Barnett who to cook the perfect Christmas roast goose with a herb stuffing. The recipe is taken from her book 'Big Table, Busy Kitchen'.

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Flavourwise, goose smashes it over turkey. But it has its drawbacks too, namely that there’s not really a whole lot of meat on there for a bird of its size. One option is to do a goose plus a ham. However, what you do get is jars and jars of yummy fat, which is a sound flavour investment for the year to come. It literally lasts a year in the back of the fridge, so is useful for roasties, etc

Tips:

A 6 kilo bird will feed around 6 people

Make sure you save the goose fat, it's liquid gold!

Take the goose out of the package the night before, leave it out in cool place so it can dry out and put lots of sea salt on the skin

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 goose, about 6kg (weight without giblets, which you do also need), at room temp
  • 1 garlic bulb, halved through the equator
  • Couple of handfuls of thyme and/or rosemary
  • sea salt

METHOD:

  1. First get your stuffing going. ( see recipe below)
  2. Weigh your bird, remove the giblets if still inside, and preheat the oven to 220°C/ fan 200ºC/Gas 7.
  3. Find a roasting tray that’s big enough to hold the bird and sit a trivet or wire rack in it (so the bird isn’t swimming in the fat it releases), then put in the oven to get hot.
  4. Spoon the stuffing evenly around the bottom of the cavity, or just put the herbs and garlic in there.
  5. Season the outside of the bird well with sea salt, double up a piece of foil and pat that on to the breasts but not the legs.
  6. Once the oven is up to speed, take the tray out, pop the bird on the trivet or rack and stick it all back in the oven.
  7. Cook for 25 minutes, turn the heat down to 190ºC/fan 170ºC/Gas 5 and roast for another 18 minutes per kilo, basting every half hour.
  8. Check if your goose is cooked by inserting a thin knife at the point where thigh meets breast.
  9. Then take the foil off and leave to rest uncovered for 20 minutes while you get on with the gravy

Golden Breadcrumb & Herb Stuffing

To stuff or not to stuff, that is my constant question. Serving some kind of stuffing at Christmas is totally obligatory, the question being do you put it – as the name implies – inside the bird, or bake it separately in a dish? There are benefits to each, so it’s your call...

INGREDIENTS:

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 3 tbsp rosemary, finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp thyme leaves, chopped
  • few sprigs of sage, leaves finely chopped
  • 200g breadcrumbs, made from slightly stale, day-old bread
  • handful of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
  • zest of a lemon
  • good knob of butter
  • S & P

METHOD:

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan 160ºC/Gas 4.
  2. Put the oil in a biggish frying pan and sweat the onion, garlic, rosemary, thyme and sage over a medium heat for 5–7 minutes until the onion has softened and the herbs aromatised.
  3. Put the breadcrumbs, parsley and lemon zest in a bowl, and once the oniony herbs have done their thing, tip them in too.
  4. Season with salt and pepper, stir well and mix in just a few tablespoons of water, enough to make a moist stuffing.
  5. If it’s going inside a bird then you know what to do, but if you prefer to keep it veggie, then choose an ovenproof dish that will hold it all (about 15 x 20 x 5cm) and rub with a knob of butter.
  6. Spoon in the stuffing, give it a bit of a pack down, then cover with foil and cook for 20 minutes, before removing the foil and baking for a last 10 minutes, until golden.