Goose for Christmas dinner - what with?

[WhoKnowsWhereTheMistletoes]

We've decided on a break from turkey this year and have ordered a goose. Now I'm wondering what to have with it. Roast potatoes and yorkshire puddings are obligatory, we normally have sprouts, carrots and parsnips but what about stuffing? Bread and cranberry sauces? Or are there different accompaniments that go better?

You can use all the same accompaniements as for turkey. But there is very little meat on a goose, and gallons of fat. How many are you expecting it to feed? You'd be pushed to get enough meat off it for 4 people. Though what little there is is delicious.

The one year we cooked goose, we had to keep emptying roasting tin to pour off the fat down the outside drain, and the house stank of goose fat for weeks afterwards.

It's for four adults and one child, who doesn't eat a lot of meat, actually neither do I. I was planning to do masses of pigs in blankets as well, so we should be ok quantity wise. I have taken goose fat for the roasties off my normal Christmas shopping list!

I'm also doing goose for the first time. I'm making cranberry sauce and apple sauce. Not sure what stuffing yet!

I am armed with one of those turkey baster things to draw off all the fat when it comes out. Apparently it's very important to prick the skin. And you can get 1 litre of fat out, so plenty for roasties!

I made a spiced red cabbage the day before in the slow cooker. It goes really well with goose

Apple sauce goes with goose. You can make it in advance and it's very easy. Make it quite tart so it cuts through the fat of the goose.

we usually have one (large) goose for 6 adults and 3 dc.
no leftovers though and lots of trimmings cooked with the fat

• sprouts (cooked then fried in the fat)
• maroons (chestnuts)
• red cabbage (the polish slightly pickled stuff)
• potatoes and croquettes
• peas

probably missed som out...

Thanks - wouldn't have thought of apple sauce, I don't like it myself but will see what everyone else thinks. Not sure about spiced red cabbage, what sort of spices? I would like it with curry type spices, but don't like Christmassy spices (cinnamon, mixed spice etc) with savoury foods, only sweet. I am one of those people who places all flavours in sweet and savoury camps and never the twain shall meet (apart from cranberry sauce for some reason).

at pouring the goose fat down the drain! Make sure you have a suitable container handy, it keeps in the fridge for ages.

When I did goose I made a mashed potato, leek and lemon stuffing and served it with baked apples stuffed with cranberries. Both were delicious, esp the stuffing. (It doesn't need a sausagemeat stuffing as the point of that is to lubricate a less fatty meat)

The recipe is here

The mashed potato sounds nice. Apples stuffed with cranberries sounds like a nice pudding, but again, I wouldn't like it with the main, will ask the others what they think. Fruit and meat just do not go together for me.

I'll be keeping the goose fat to do my roasties for the next few months.

We cook a goose with a Russian recipe every so often as an Xmas alternative. I don't have the full details to hand, but the essence is that you stuff the goose with chunks of apple, onion and thyme, and the goose rests on a bed of onions and thyme while it cooks. As the goose cooks, you collect some of the rendered fat for the potatoes.

It is unbelievably delicious. The apple and onions caramelise and cut the richness of the goose meat with sweet acidity. It is truly outstanding.

You've said you're not a fan of fruit and meat, however, so I guess you may want to try something else, such as:
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2428/gordons-christmas-roast-goose- (I presume lemons are OK despite being a fruit!)
christmas.food.com/recipe/roast-goose-with-juniper-sauce-202310
christmas.food.com/recipes/christmas-goose

I'd personally go for the Nigel Slater juniper recipe myself.

Lemons are borderline! Like lemon with fish but not meat.

You will want to add some kind of sharpness somewhere as goose is very rich and can have a greasy quality.

I don't mind a bit of sharpness but definitely no sweetness (I don't even like parsnips because they are too sweet). I would only use enough lemon to give a touch of acidity, not enough that you can taste the lemon IYSWIM. I will go sharper than usual with the gravy, add some balsamic glaze or similar. Just no fruit!

If you make apple sauce with cooking apples is won't be sweet.

I suppose not. What do you do, just stew them like you would for crumble but without the sugar?

We always have goose. I cook it on a rack in the roasting pan, upside down to start with and then right way up, then in the roasting pan itself for the last hour. I lift the rack off once or twice and carefully drain off every drop of fat to be used for roast potatoes and fried egg and bacon for the rest of the year. We have sage, onion and lemon stuffing, mash, sprouts and carrots and apple sauce (purée, bit of sugar, splash of Madeira).
There is always enough for cold, with spiced red cabbage on Boxing Day.

EmilyAlice - do you stuff the goose itself or serve it with the stuffing? Every recipe I see seems to stuff the goose, but ideally I'd like to do the stuffing separately.

When we did goose last year we had some crab apple jelly to go with it, it worked a treat. Having something sharp to cut through the fabulous goosey flavours is a must. Rowan jelly/sauce would also go very nicely with it. As a pp has said, the fat will probably need to be drained off at least once if not two or three times during cooking. We used a very deep roasting tin and still had to decant the fat off twice.

We also roasted chunks of swede to have in addition to the carrots, parsnips, kale and sprouts.

Make sure you drain the fat off the tray every half hour, to hour through a seive into a jar. Then at the end put the jar in the fridge for fat, it lasts ages :)

We had the leftovers (not much!) With Chinese pancakes, cucumber, spring onion and hoisin sauce

I those gooseberry jelly is recommended, it's what we had. I do prefer bread sauce but it's most probably uncooth of me or something

I've got some chilli jelly in the fridge, that would be nice.

We stuff the goose just in the crop end, you need to make sure you have a good crop flap!

HomehelpmeGawd - if you have any more details of that Russian recipe, I'd love to know.