offerings.
However much you like cold cuts and leftovers, you can’t eat them for every meal. Christmas food divides into food that is seasonal and food that is deliberately not. By this latter category, I don’t mean you should be serving strawberries flown in from distant hemispheres, but that it can be a relief to eat food that is innocent of any seasonal connotation. So much Christmas food, too, is so palate-stickingly luxy; instead, keep it simple, make it fresh. Avoid the slavish overprovision of rich food that turns eating into a burdensome duty rather than a pleasure and turns cooking into an entirely out-of-character exercise.
A CHRISTMAS GOOSE
Years ago, I cut out this recipe for goose stuffed with mashed potato from one of British food writer Simon Hopkinson’s columns in the Independent. The recipe comes via restaurateur Peter Langan and was his grandmother Callinan’s. It must represent a curious axis, where Irish and Polish culinary practices meet, for I’ve only come across something similar in a book on Polish-Jewish cooking.
Simon Hopkinson, no namby-pamby when it comes to food, says this recipe feeds six and I believe him (normally I treat printed portion sizes with distrust), so if you’re having more than six guests, cook a couple of geese, eat all the unctuous stuffing, and have the cold meat later on in the week. Because you need to dry out the skin well before you start, you have to get cracking early.
1 goose, about 10 pounds, with giblets
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1½ pounds potatoes, peeled, cut into large chunks and rinsed thoroughly
4 medium onions, chopped coarsely
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 heaping tablespoon fresh sage leaves, chopped
grated rind of 2 lemons
freshly milled black pepper
salt
FOR THE GRAVY
4 strips bacon, chopped
1 goose neck, chopped coarsely
1 goose gizzard, cleaned (ask your butcher to do this) and chopped coarsely
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 tablespoons Calvados
½ cup Madeira
1¼ cups strong chicken stock
1 scant tablespoon red currant jelly
1 heaping teaspoon arrowroot, mixed with a little water
First prepare the goose and render some lovely goose fat. Remove all the lumps of pale fat that lie just inside the goose’s cavity, attached to the skin. Put them in a saucepan with the oil and place on a very low heat and let the fat melt. Render it all down, pour it into a bowl, and add to this, later, the great glorious amounts of fat that drip off the goose into the pan as it roasts. The goose fat will be wonderful for roast potatoes on Christmas Day—or any day.
Now, get to work on the goose’s skin, so that it crisps up in the oven like Peking duck. Put the goose on a rack in a roasting pan, puncture the skin several times with the point of a thin skewer or very sharp knife, then pour over boiling water. Tip all the water out of the pan and let the goose dry. The brave or rural can do this by placing it by an open window—at this time of year, I think you can count on a fair breeze—and leave for hours, preferably overnight. Otherwise, and even better, direct an electric fan toward the bird for a few hours. Remember to turn it regularly so that all sides get dried. You are often advised to hang the bird up, but this is hard enough to do with a duck and a coat hanger, and a duck is very much lighter than a goose. But if you’ve got a butcher’s hook handy, and somewhere to hang it, why not give it a try?
Your goose is prepared; now preheat the oven to 425°F. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender, drain well, and mash coarsely. Fry the onions in the recently rendered goose fat until golden brown. Add the garlic and stir them both into the mashed potato, along with the sage and lemon rind. Season with the pepper, rub a generous amount of salt over the goose, and put a good grinding of pepper inside the cavity. Then pack the mashed potato mixture into the cavity
However much you like cold cuts and leftovers, you can’t eat them for every meal. Christmas food divides into food that is seasonal and food that is deliberately not. By this latter category, I don’t mean you should be serving strawberries flown in from distant hemispheres, but that it can be a relief to eat food that is innocent of any seasonal connotation. So much Christmas food, too, is so palate-stickingly luxy; instead, keep it simple, make it fresh. Avoid the slavish overprovision of rich food that turns eating into a burdensome duty rather than a pleasure and turns cooking into an entirely out-of-character exercise.
A CHRISTMAS GOOSE
Years ago, I cut out this recipe for goose stuffed with mashed potato from one of British food writer Simon Hopkinson’s columns in the Independent. The recipe comes via restaurateur Peter Langan and was his grandmother Callinan’s. It must represent a curious axis, where Irish and Polish culinary practices meet, for I’ve only come across something similar in a book on Polish-Jewish cooking.
Simon Hopkinson, no namby-pamby when it comes to food, says this recipe feeds six and I believe him (normally I treat printed portion sizes with distrust), so if you’re having more than six guests, cook a couple of geese, eat all the unctuous stuffing, and have the cold meat later on in the week. Because you need to dry out the skin well before you start, you have to get cracking early.
1 goose, about 10 pounds, with giblets
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1½ pounds potatoes, peeled, cut into large chunks and rinsed thoroughly
4 medium onions, chopped coarsely
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 heaping tablespoon fresh sage leaves, chopped
grated rind of 2 lemons
freshly milled black pepper
salt
FOR THE GRAVY
4 strips bacon, chopped
1 goose neck, chopped coarsely
1 goose gizzard, cleaned (ask your butcher to do this) and chopped coarsely
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 tablespoons Calvados
½ cup Madeira
1¼ cups strong chicken stock
1 scant tablespoon red currant jelly
1 heaping teaspoon arrowroot, mixed with a little water
First prepare the goose and render some lovely goose fat. Remove all the lumps of pale fat that lie just inside the goose’s cavity, attached to the skin. Put them in a saucepan with the oil and place on a very low heat and let the fat melt. Render it all down, pour it into a bowl, and add to this, later, the great glorious amounts of fat that drip off the goose into the pan as it roasts. The goose fat will be wonderful for roast potatoes on Christmas Day—or any day.
Now, get to work on the goose’s skin, so that it crisps up in the oven like Peking duck. Put the goose on a rack in a roasting pan, puncture the skin several times with the point of a thin skewer or very sharp knife, then pour over boiling water. Tip all the water out of the pan and let the goose dry. The brave or rural can do this by placing it by an open window—at this time of year, I think you can count on a fair breeze—and leave for hours, preferably overnight. Otherwise, and even better, direct an electric fan toward the bird for a few hours. Remember to turn it regularly so that all sides get dried. You are often advised to hang the bird up, but this is hard enough to do with a duck and a coat hanger, and a duck is very much lighter than a goose. But if you’ve got a butcher’s hook handy, and somewhere to hang it, why not give it a try?
Your goose is prepared; now preheat the oven to 425°F. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender, drain well, and mash coarsely. Fry the onions in the recently rendered goose fat until golden brown. Add the garlic and stir them both into the mashed potato, along with the sage and lemon rind. Season with the pepper, rub a generous amount of salt over the goose, and put a good grinding of pepper inside the cavity. Then pack the mashed potato mixture into the cavity
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