INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

My wife, who likes to volunteer me for challenges, decided to get a
goose for Christmas dinner this year. We'd planned to have it in  early
afternoon, but shifted dinner to suppertime so we could lunch  on the
clam chowder we didn't eat on Christmas Eve because the  cocktail party
we'd gone to turned out to be a buffet with beef  tenderloin, onion
tarts, and other goodies.  I'd never done a goose myself before, and
had only vague memories of  helping with one many moons ago, so I did
some research. The big  challenge, as you probably know, is the thick
fat layer on domestic  geese. The recipes I turned up called for
roasting, and I didn't want  to spend too long a time cooking it, so I
planned to use a Weber  kettle with small fires on either side of
charcoal and wood (apple,  since I have an unlimited supply). The
barbecuing itself was actually  uninteresting -- about two and a half
hours (with the air temp at the  top of the kettle in the 300's F.)
until it reached an interior  temperature of 170 F in the inner thigh.
Apparently goose is hard to  go too far wrong with; it doesn't dry out
as badly as a lot of birds  when overcooked. The interesting part of
the process was the  preparation for cooking, which I got from a Xerox
my wife had  acquired somewhere (I don't have the reference on me, but
think it  was out of the old Cook's Magazine):  Choose a smallish
goose; anything over 13 lb. is likely to be old and  tough. A day, or
better two, before you plan to cook it, take your  largest stockpot or
lobster pot, fill it half full with water, and  bring to a boil. Remove
the neck and innards from the goose's cavity  and pluck any remaining
quills with pliers. Cut around the wishbone  with a sharp knife and
remove it (anyone know why they want this  done?).  Puncture the
goose's skin all over with a sharp point (the letter  recommended a
barding needle; I just used an instant-read  thermometer), coming in at
an oblique angle to avoid puncturing the  meat below the subcutaneous
fat. Put the goose in the boiling water  for about a minute (or until
"goose bumps" form). If, as is likely  (and was true for me) the goose
won't fit all the way into the pot,  you'll have to turn it end-for-end
and immerse the other end as well.  You'll want gloves for this
operation, especially if you have to  "double-dip." I used disposable
food-service gloves and got by, but  real rubber work gloves would have
given better heat insulation.  Dry the goose and put it UNCOVERED on a
broiling rack in the  refrigerator to dry the skin. The skin will
tighten around the bird,  forcing some of the fat through the holes,
though most of that will  happen during the cooking process.  To cook,
rub salt and pepper over the goose and put lemon juice in the  cavity.
You need a BIG drip pan -- I used a 99-cent disposable  turkey-roasting
pan with high sides to reduce the chance that a spark  would set off a
grease fire. I probably should have emptied the  grease a time or two
along the way, but it was cold, it was  Christmas, my back hurt from
injudicious lift on an oak limb on  Sunday, and I didn't. I got away
with it this time; I certainly  wouldn't have tried doing so with a
wood that was more likely to  "spit" than apple is, or that wasn't
already burnt down substantially  before the fat was rendered.  The
result was a goose that was very good, though not perfect: the  meat
was firm as expected, with a good subtle smoke taste (goose, by  the
way, does not "taste like chicken"; more like roast beef if  anything).
The skin was mostly crisp and very good (cf. Peking duck),  though next
time I will prick the skin more thoroughly and turn the  goose more
often while it's cooking (this would be a good spit-cooked  item).
There were still pockets of fat that I think were mainly due  to poor
drainage.  Recipe by: John Martin  Posted to bbq-digest by
"bozo@inforum.net" <bozo@inforum.net> on Nov  20, 1999, converted by
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