I Cooked Her Goose

My goose was uncooked! It sat, in fact, thawed in the refrigerator on Friday, when Saturday night’s dinner guests called and canceled. A family emergency, they said. That’s all right, I said.

I foresaw roast goose for one. Not a merry thought.

But then Kristine called. I know her only a little; she’s a friend of a friend. She was just back in town from New York and was throwing a dinner party on very short notice--that very Saturday night. Our mutual friend was invited and had suggested she invite me too.

“I’d like to come,” I said. “But I have this goose I have to cook. It’s already thawed, and if I don’t cook it Saturday, I won’t ever cook it. So, no. But thanks. I have to stay home and cook this stupid goose.”

“Oh,” she said. “This is really too bad.”

“Unless you want me to cook it and bring it over,” I said. “I mean, I don’t want to co-opt your menu plans, but I will have this whole cooked goose and nobody to eat it but me.”

“This is some kind of phone call,” Kristine said. “I invite you to dinner and you volunteer to bring the entree.”

“I have stuff for a relish, too.”

“And what can I cook?” Kristine asked.

“As a matter of fact,” I said, “the best reason to cook a goose is to get the fat, and the best thing to do with the fat is to roast parsnips in it. Other root vegetables are good, too, but parsnips are the best. So you could, if you wanted to, buy some parsnips.”

Just like that, we’d planned a dinner party. And before Kristine got off the phone, she told me a goose story.

One Christmas her mother had cooked a goose and extolled the virtues of goose fat to Kristine and a friend. Goose fat, Kristine’s mother said, was an excellent water-proofing agent: “When I was a little girl on the farm, we used to rub it on our boots and shoes,” she said. “It really kept the water out.”

Kristine’s friend, who heard this, took it to heart. She carried home a small container of goose fat and rubbed her rain boots with it. The problem, she later told Kristine, was that all day long, she was plagued by dogs coming up and sniffing and licking her boots. She tried to get the goose fat off the rain boots, but no matter what soap she used, the dogs kept coming. She ended up throwing those rain boots away.

I decided that Kristine and I were going to get along.

*

Early the next afternoon, I set about roasting my goose, using an adjusted recipe for perfect roast chicken. I pricked the skin lightly, so that the fat could run off, and was careful not to prick through to the meat, or it would lose its juices and dry out. I lightly rubbed the inside and the outside with a paste made of coarse salt and garlic.

Salt will help draw the fat from its subcutaneous hiding places. Too much salt, though, will dry the bird out.

I tossed some softened lemons and a halved onion into the cavity, then set the whole bird on a rack in the preheated oven.

(You can stuff geese, but the stuffing will be downright sodden with fat. Although goose fat is a divine substance, I prefer to take it in smaller, more controlled doses.)

I put some water in the roasting pan to humidify the early stages of cooking--the water would evaporate after an hour or so, about the time the goose fat really starts to flow.

I believe that goose fat is one of the world’s greatest fats: snow white, smooth as silk, mild flavored and miraculous in the pan.

Meat browns well in goose fat, and nothing gives pan-fried chicken a better, more compelling crackliness. When serving mashed potatoes with a roast goose--or any time--add goose fat instead of butter and you’ll be surprised by an ineffable sheen and melt-in-your mouth quality.

Used in the roasting of vegetables, goose fat imparts a golden-brown sticky-crispness while at the same time sweetening and enlarging the vegetables’ best inherent flavors. Saute cabbage in it--and/or apples.

As an added bonus, if used properly, goose fat is not absorbed as much as other fats, which means that the calorie count of those roast vegetables might be somewhat lower if you use glorious goose fat instead of your usual olive oil or plain old butter.

Historically, goose fat has been known for its medicinal qualities; Midwestern farmers used it for body rubs. It is also a terrific preservative: Pour it over a pot full of shredded goose meat, and the potted meat, what the French call rillettes, will last for months. That’s actually one of the best things you can do with a goose.

Goose fat is such a sublime, essentially pure and delicate substance that it even makes a wonderful silken salad dressing. I’m not kidding. Goose fat on salad does sound heavy and possibly, well, greasy, but it’s not! I learned this astonishing fact and more because, as this very bird was cooking, I e-mailed my former graduate school roommate in Chicago and confessed that I was roasting a goose largely for its fat. Pam fired back this message:

“About the goose fat: When I was in the southwest of France, I ate goose fat on and in everything, because it is the regional butter. It is the most delicious fat! I had warm salads dressed in it--unbelievably sensational! And here’s something you might not know: The Gers (the region I was in), which is the capital of foie gras (not the Dordogne, as ill-informed travel writers would have you believe), also has the lowest per-capita incidence of cardiovascular disease in France. Of course, most of the population are farmers, so they get some exercise, but still. . . .”

See? I am not the only fool-for-goose-fat on the planet. Countless others have discovered that it’s as meaty as bacon fat but infinitely more refined, as flavor-enhancing as butter but smoother, subtler. It’s the Cadillac of fats. I love it.

Therefore, I get very happy ‘round about the second hour of goose roasting, when I start pulling the fat from the pan and saving it in cup-sized Mason jars. I’ll store one in the fridge, a few in the freezer. More than four cups of fat, in all. And all from one goose.

Roast geese do best if they cool between the first long, covered, thorough cooking and a second, uncovered, high-temperature crisping process. I don’t know why exactly this is, but many fried foods are best cooked twice: French fries, for example, and chicharrones.

Though the goose is not technically deep-fried, the process of cooking in its own seemingly inexhaustible stores of fat produces a result not dissimilar to deep frying. (Deep frying from within?) Twice-cooking crisps the skin, seals in the juices and amps up the flavor of the meat.

I know this because I’ve had once-cooked goose and twice-cooked goose and can say that the latter is unequivocally better. There are even recipes for holding a goose overnight between cooking stints, a method that, if you can schedule it, produces superb results.

*

The gap between my goose’s first and second cooking was determined in part by the necessary journey to Kristine’s apartment in Hollywood. She lives on the eighth floor in a very secure building. I parked in the lot under the building, managed to hand the keys to the parking attendant even as I lugged the foil-covered roasting pan with one knobby, bony goose leg sticking out.

In the pretty, posh lobby, I had to set the pan down on the wooden reception desk to sign in. My signature was punctuated with a telltale spot of grease. The pan left a little smear on the wood counter.

“Don’t worry,” I told the desk clerk. “It’s good for the wood. A terrific sealant.”

I hit the elevator button with my elbow and rode up to Kristine’s floor. I gave the door what I hoped was a civil enough kick, and when she opened it, I was able to say, with aplomb, “Madame, your goose is cooked.”

The goose had spent its first 3 1/2 hours in my small gas oven, and now it would spend the next 40 minutes uncovered in Kristine’s large electric one, along with a huge pan of parsnips, carrots, turnips and rutabagas.

Except for the lugging of the big, ungainly, mostly roasted goose across town, through parking garage and lobby, dinner turned out to be very easy indeed. As we waited for the bird and vegetables to finish cooking, Kristine made a green salad and steamed green beans and I assembled the relish, really a fresh-cooked chutney of onions, cranberries, apple, fresh ginger, brown sugar, cinnamon and a splash of vinegar.

The other guests arrived. The goose came out of the oven and sat while we had drinks. This resting period is also crucial to the cooking--the meat sets up a bit and is easier to carve.

One of guests knew the lost art of carving and performed it admirably.

The surprising thing about this goose was not the perfect golden crisp skin or the dreamy sticky-crisp vegetables roasted in its fat but the insanely tasty and moist meat. I had never before loved a roast goose (or, for that matter, a live one), but this bird was convincing, insistently seductive. All dark meat, tender, rich and full-flavored, it proved a perfect foil for ginger-spiked cranberry-apple relish.

We ate ourselves into a dreamy stupor, then moved to the living room to gape at the bright lights of Hollywood. One couple left early to go to another party, but they never made it. They were too full, they told me later. Too full and too drowsy. They went home instead and fell right to sleep. Micky-Finned by goose--and goose fat.

ROAST GOOSE

Huneven’s oven is small, and it took 3 1/2 hours for her goose to cook; the Times Test Kitchen’s goose was done in 1 1/2 hours. The only sure way to know if your bird is done is when a meat thermometer inserted in the innermost part of the thigh registers 165 degrees. 1 (10-pound) goose

6 to 8 large cloves garlic, peeled

1 1/2 tablespoons coarse salt

3 lemons

1 large onion, halved

2 cups water

Prick skin lightly all over with fork. Make paste of garlic and salt with pestle in mortar. Rub paste over outside of goose and in cavity.

Soften lemons by rolling on counter. Prick lemons with knife all over. Fill goose cavity with lemons and onion halves. Pour water in roasting pan. Roast goose, covered, on rack in roasting pan at 350 degrees 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours or until thermometer inserted in innermost part of thigh registers 165 degrees. Remove rendered goose fat with bulb baster after the first hour. Remove goose from oven, and let sit, covered, at least 30 minutes.

Return to oven and roast at 450 degrees until skin is browned, 30 to 40 minutes. Let sit 20 minutes. Remove and discard lemons and onions before carving.

Remove all but 2 tablespoons goose fat from roasting pan and make gravy from drippings if desired. There will be about 4 cups rendered goose fat.

6 servings. Each serving:

1,486 calories; 1,471 mg sodium; 318 mg cholesterol; 133 grams fat; 3 grams carbohydrates; 63 grams protein; 0.13 gram fiber.

CRAN-APPLE GINGER RELISH

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

Zest of 1 orange, chopped

1 cup fresh cranberries

1 Granny Smith apple, chopped cranberry-size

1 tablespoon peeled and chopped ginger root

3 tablespoons light brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Salt

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and orange zest and saute until onion turns golden, about 4 minutes. Add cranberries and cook until they start to split.

Add apple, ginger, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt to taste, and continue cooking and stirring 3 minutes. Add vinegar and stir until evaporated. Continue cooking until apples are softened, 2 to 3 more minutes.

Taste for seasoning and add more sugar or salt if needed. Serve at room temperature.

Makes 1 1/4 cups. Each 2-tablespoon serving:

53 calories; 31 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 3 grams fat; 8 grams carbohydrates; 0 protein; 0.28 gram fiber.

ROOT VEGETABLES ROASTED IN GOOSE FAT

4 to 6 tablespoons goose fat

4 turnips, halved, then cut in 1/2-inch slices

4 rutabagas, halved, then cut in 1/2-inch slices

6 parsnips, thicker ones halved

6 carrots, thicker ones halved

Salt, preferably coarse

Melt goose fat in large roasting pan. Add turnips, rutabagas, parsnips and carrots, tossing to coat with oil. Salt liberally to taste. Vegetables should be in 1 layer.

Roast at 450 degrees, turning once or twice, until vegetables pierce easily with fork, about 20 minutes. Remove from pan and blot to remove oil if desired.

6 servings. Each serving:

135 calories; 85 mg sodium; 9 mg cholesterol; 9 grams fat; 14 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 1.52 grams fiber.

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COOK’S TIP

Goose fat if removed several times during cooking will be pale and clear. Left in the pan as the goose cooks, it will eventually turn golden, then brown.