Medieval Christmas Goose Recipe

How to make it

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• Preparation in advance:
• Prepare the goose as explained below.
• Make the stuffing: Boil the unpeeled quinces for an hour in water. Drain and let cool. Peel quinces and pears, decore them. Cut them in small pieces. Mix in the chopped herbs, garlic and peeled grapes.
• To make the galentine: Put the stock in a boiling pan, add the giblets from the plastic bag. Bring to the boil, let simmer a couple of hours. Strain the stock through a fine sieve.
• Preheat the oven to 180 grC/ 350 dgF. Stuff the goose, secure the filling within, and place the goose on a rack on a roasting tin.
• Place the goose in the oven, baste it regularly with the pan juices. When the goose is done (after two and a half to three and a half hours, depending on the size of your goose), take it out of the oven, let it rest for ten minutes, covered with foil.
• Now you have to make a choice: if you want to serve the goose whole, all you have to do is scoop out the stuffing and return the goose to the oven on 100grC/210grF to keep it warm. However, the recipe indicates that the goose is to be served in pieces. Cut off the leggs, wings, and breast fillets. Cut the fillets in thick slices. If you want to, you can also debone the legs and wings and the carcass.
• Make the sauce: Heat some of the goose grease from the roasting tin in a sauce pan. Fry the onion in it. Add the strained stock and red wine, and the bread crumbs. Let this simmer a short while until the sauce has thickened. Now add the stuffing from the goose, spices, and wine vinegar. Bring to the boil once more. If the sauce is too thick, add wine, is it too thin, add bread crumbs.
• To serve:
• Arrange the whole goose, or the goose meat, on a decorative dish. Pour some of the sauce over it, serve the remainder of the sauce in a saucier.
• If you are not afraid of an anachronism you can serve oven roasted potatoes (with skin) with the goose. Otherwise you should serve bread.
• Notes:
• Quinces: Quinces are shaped like an apple or a pear. They are full of pectine, which makes them usefull in making preserves. You can not eat them raw, they are much to hard and sour. When cooked, the quinces have acquired a subtle pink colour.
• Ancient fruit varieties: The stuffing of the goose consists mainly of quinces and apples. The recipe does not specify which quinces and pears should be used. Many commercially available pear varieties did not exist until fairly recently. The "Doyenne de Comice" originates from the middle of the nineteenth century, the "Conference" is even more recent. There was already a difference between dessert pears and cooking pears. There were many fruit varieties which have ceased to exist. You can use cooking pears or not too ripe dessert pears, and quinces or sour apples.
• There are still people who grow ancient fruit varieties. If you wanted to plant a fruit tree anyway, why not try and find an ancient variety?
• Goose: A fattened goose is not the same as a wild goose. This recipe is for a tame, fattened goose. When the goose comes from the freezer, you have to take it out of the freezer two days in advance of preparing it. Let it thaw in the refrigerator. When you have forgotten to do this, you can thaw the goose more quickly in a plastic bag, in a bucket full of cold water which you refresh now and again.
• In the cavity of the goose you find a little bag with neck and giblets of the goose. These will be used to make the stock for the sauce. It is practically impossible to remove the bag before the goose is fully thawed out. Once it is removed, sprinkle the goose on the inside with salt. Wipe the cavity clean after twenty minutes.
• To roast a goose, set the oven on 200 grC / 390 F (conventional oven) or 180 grC / 350 F (convection oven). To calculate the roasting time you leave the goose in the oven 15 minutes for every pound (450 gram), plus twenty minutes extra. When your goose weighs 3 kilogram (6,6 pounds), it has to stay in the oven for about two and a half hour.
• Take the goose out of the oven, let it rest for ten minutes, coverd with crinkled foil (shiny side inwards). Then cut the goose as you wish.
• To keep the grease: Cut the tail grease off before roasting. Melt this seperately, strain it, and keep it in a jar in the refrigerator.