# My goose is cooking.



## FrankZ (Jan 5, 2010)

I have never had goose and always wanted to try it.  A friend of mine brought this one down on Friday. 

I did a brine with apple juice, brown sugar, salt, cloves and clementines.

Hopefully it will turn out nice for dinner tonight.


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## ChefJune (Jan 5, 2010)

I hope you de-fatted it before you started all that.  I cooked my first goose on Christmas.  It surely didn't need any brining, but it did need to be pricked all over and blanched in boiling water for a couple of minutes.  Even so, it yielded more than a quart of fat in the bottom of the roaster.  But the goose needs to be prepped in order to give up all that fat while it's cooking, or you are likely to end up with a very greasy bird.


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## FrankZ (Jan 5, 2010)

My friend removed the skin (and most of the fat) when he cleaned it.  He hates plucking.

I am interested to see how much is in the drip pan at the end of all this.


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## Andy M. (Jan 5, 2010)

Did you coat the goose with any butter or oil to keep the meat from drying out?  The fat in game meat is pretty much all directly under the skin so if you remove the skin and attached fat, you are left with very lean breast meat exposed to the drying heat of the oven.


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## FrankZ (Jan 5, 2010)

No I didn't.  Now you mention that.

It is in the smoker not the oven.

I am hoping the brine will take care of the dry part.


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## Andy M. (Jan 5, 2010)

It might be worth while to cover the breasts with some bacon or a butter soaked cloth.


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## ChefJune (Jan 5, 2010)

It's still going to be dry without any fat to protect it.  You might want to put a few strips of bacon over the breast.

I don't know why anyone would skin the goose.  The skin protects the meat, but also, when the bird is done, the skin is so crisp and succulent.


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## FrankZ (Jan 5, 2010)

I have bacon I believe... mayhaps I will go lay a few strips across it.


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## jet (Jan 5, 2010)

ChefJune said:


> It's still going to be dry without any fat to protect it.  You might want to put a few strips of bacon over the breast.
> 
> I don't know why anyone would skin the goose.  The skin protects the meat, but also, when the bird is done, the skin is so crisp and succulent.


 
Have you ever plucked a bird?  I don't know anyone who has that doesn't shudder at the very thought of it.


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## FrankZ (Jan 5, 2010)

My friend that gave me the goose used to pluck them.  He got the 1000 yard stare when he mentioned it.  Something about drowning in a sea of feathers.


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## ChefJune (Jan 5, 2010)

jet said:


> Have you ever plucked a bird? I don't know anyone who has that doesn't shudder at the very thought of it.


 
I certainly have plucked many birds.   That is how I learned to cook chicken.  On the farm, you start out by selecting your chicken, and then killing it.  After dipping it in boiling water to loosen the feathers, you start removing them. And I DO mean all of them! 

These days, since I buy my birds directly from the farmer who grows them, THEY do the killing and the plucking, but there are always errant pinfeathers that have to be removed.  And the goose had by far the most pinfeathers I've ever encountered when I didn't start from scratch.

All part of the process, imho.


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## FrankZ (Jan 5, 2010)

The goose turned out nicely.  Moist enough with a good flavor.  The apple juice can through in a nice subtle way.

Too bad the bird wasn't bigger.


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## Robo410 (Jan 5, 2010)

re goose fat: if it's got it, render it by pricking goose and pouring off the fat every 1/2 hour. give a little vodka baste to the bird.  Yes, the skin gets wonderfully crispy. Save the fat for making your own confit. awesome.

Glad it turned out nicely.

If you get a wild bird it will have no fat. lard it and slow braise over mirepoix with red wine. Very tasty  also.


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## Janet H (Jan 6, 2010)

That looks great!  Is there anything you would do differently next time?


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## FrankZ (Jan 6, 2010)

I would probably put the bacon on it at the beginning instead of as an after thought and possibly add more bacon during the cooking just to try and get rid of the touch of dryness.

Oh and eat more of it.  I sent the leftover back to my friend that gave me the goose. (What was I thinking trying to be nice)


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## west coast smoker (Feb 2, 2010)

*Cooking your Goose*

Chef June -  that is a wild goose that does not have any where near the fat of a store bought goose.  They have to fly for a living.  These are also nothing like plucking a chicken, which I used to do for my grandmother back in the dark ages when people raised chickens.  Wild geese come with feathers, down, and pin feathers.  Takes over half an hour to pluck a wild goose, although they do make pluckers you can buy or make.But they good news is they have more taste than your frozen plastic wrapped birds.  Thus the joy of hunting.


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## FrankZ (Jan 1, 2011)

Ok.  A year has passed (almost) since I made this goose.  The good news is...

I HAVE ANOTHER ONE!

It was flying around yesterday, and is getting cooked tomorrow morning.  I put it in the brine.

My friend also brought over some of the fat (rendered already) and about a pound of liver.  I need to get more bacon (when is that ever a bad thing to say) before tomorrow.


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## pacanis (Jan 1, 2011)

Bacon... I always have 2-3 lbs in the fridge and some in the freezer, packaged 5-6 strips per. Bacon and butter is something I never want have to run to the store for ;^)

Beautiful job on the goose earlier. Very nicely carved, too.


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## FrankZ (Jan 1, 2011)

Bacon is a weird thing around here.  We have some it goes away, but not reliably.  Sometimes it sits too long.  We don't have a big freezer so storing it in there would not work well.  We have discussed a new freezer (chest type).

And thanks.  It was a lot of fun last year.  It is nice to have friends that call you up and tell you they have fresh meat for ya.


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## spork (Jan 2, 2011)

When I saw the thread title, I thought it might be a naughty confession from FrankZ that had Kathleen setting up the doghouse outside...

I was pleased to see a handsome board of sliced goose flesh instead.  I've never prepared it; every time I pass by a frozen breast at my local Asian market, I think about it, and get scared...  I will give it a try this year!

How long to brine, does anyone suggest, for just half a goose breast?


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