Cooking Christmas Goose
How To Cook Your Christmas Goose
For a truly traditional Christmas food, nothing beats a goose – and when it comes to delicious examples of this most-festive of birds, nothing beats Fortnum’s.
Grown-naturally and fed on a home-grown, single grain cereal-based diet, all our geese are traditionally-reared and given the freedom to roam the grassy paddocks and fields of a beautiful farm from spring until December. Each is then traditionally wax-plucked, hand-finished and hung to mature for a minimum of eight days.
After all that careful tending, the result is a full-flavoured and tender bird that makes the perfect centrepiece to any Christmas meal. Let the feasting commence!
Recipe
STEP 1
First, remove all packaging from your goose – including the giblets, which will also arrive vacuum-packed – and store in your refrigerator.
STEP 2
When you are preparing to cook, take your goose from the refrigerator, remove the trussing band, and leave it to stand for a couple of hours.
STEP 3
Stuffing the cavity will actually hinder the cooking of the goose so instead, we recommend putting an apple, peeled onion and the provided herbs inside the bird as aromats.
STEP 4
Next, sprinkle the goose generously with salt and pepper both inside and out. Prick the fat gland beneath the wing of the goose and at the ‘parson’s nose’ at the very rear of the bird – this will release the fat during cooking and ensure the meat is tender and moist. The legs may be covered in foil at this stage to prevent burning.
STEP 5
Place the goose on a roasting rack inside a deep roasting pan and into a pre-heated oven at 190ºC, 375ºF, Gas 5. Cooking time will vary greatly depending on your oven and the size of your bird, but as a general rule, we recommend cooking for approximately 30 minutes per kg.
How to Carve
Here’s what our experts recommend.
STEP 1
Hold the goose leg by the knuckle.
STEP 2
Cut close to the body and twist off, then carve the dark leg meat.
STEP 3
Remove the wing and cut in half.
STEP 4
Slice the breast meat from one side.
STEP 5
Repeat for the other side.