My daughter wants a Christmas goose for dinner that day. My only experience with cooking a goose was with one I harvested years ago. I swore I would never harm or cook another goose. It was greasy and tasted bad, almost fishy. Her comment was they have to be good or people wouldn’t eat them. I’ve agreed to try one more time with the exception that I will buy the goose. Do you know a way to prepare goose that’s not greasy and is great tasting? I have a friend who was a goose guide for several years. His comment was if you have 30 recipes for goose you’ll be looking for number 31.
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I've done ducks for Christmas, but never goose .... a lot of my family doesn't even like chicken or turkey thigh, so goose would be a huge challenge ..... I do happen to have this D'Artagnan recipe bookmarked in the unlikely event that I ever get to cook one :-)
History of Christmas Goose
Roast Goose and Spiced Pears
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I love your friends comment. You might want to consider another protein, (that's great as leftovers), just in case the goose doesn't work out.Comment
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Wild harvested goose and a store bought goose are a different as beef and venison flavor wise. With SUPER fatty, but it can be managed, just a pain in the ass. Serious eats has a goose recipe I have successfully used twice, but again its like making Peking Duck, a hassle.Comment
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Agree. Smoke if you think your wild one was greasy wait until you do a store bought. My MIL made us a goose for Thanksgiving about thirty years ago and it was like swimming in fat. She said you didn't really like it did you? And I had to reply no. We always skin and breast out the wild geese for cooking. I got one last week one of the Giant species. Made pastrami on the breasts and goose vegetable soup with the thighs -
The worst part about Peking Duck is it takes longer than other ducks.
They keep letting out the heat every time they lift the lid to peek at the temperature....
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You could turn up the oven when they aren't looking and burn that thing. I've had goose a few times and didn't think much of it. They cooked it stuffed with onions to mask the flavor. I'm doing a duck for Christmas with a homemade blueberry jam base sauce. Probably a touch of some type of cordial for the kick. Going to smoke it on the rotisserie.
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I say cook a really good prime rib, and tell her that is what goose tastes and looks like this year. If that doesn't work, tell her Santa/Grinch stole the goose to take it back to the work shop because it didn't light on one side, which you can add to the confusion by calling her Cindy Lou Who all day...
Sorry, I am no help. I have only tried it one time and it was as you said greasy and tasted bad. Although, I have been told if you soak it in milk/butter milk you can just say you didn't realize the milk/butter milk was spoiled so you had to throw it all away and serve a very nice prime rib.Comment
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I suspect this is the Serious Eats article that texastweeter is talking about ..... I LMAO reading it, let me tell you
Crisp Skinned Roast GooseComment
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I've had my goose cooked a time or two and it always left a bad taste in my mouth...Comment
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I haven't tried goose for all the reasons stated above. I found an A/R link that may or may not be helpful.
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Could you cook a duck and say it's a goose?Comment
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Kathy use to make goose medallions from Canadian Geese breasts I harvested and we enjoyed them. Didn’t even bother with the rest of the bird. She always brined first.
First way was basically a straight roast rubbed with SPG ( she may have added a few herbs but I don’t remember) and then sliced thin, and served in a berry sauce.
The other way was she butterflied the breasts, pounded flat and then coated one side with a roasted garlic, cheese, lemon zest, herbs, and cream cheese mixed together. Then she rolled them up, tied, breaded with panko, and pan roasted. Kind of like a Pancetta. When done she cut into medallions about an inch thick and covered with a red wine sauce based on the dripping left in the pan.
‘Haven’t had it in years but even our young kids liked it.Comment
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It seems you are in a rock and a hard place or should I say your goose is cooked. LOL Based on responses you have a choice of bait and switch or cook only the breast. As long as she doesn’t want a full goose presentation like a turkey the breast only might work especially if they tend to be dry like chicken breast.Comment
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I know you want cooking advise, but all I can say is talk her out of it. I shot some geese one year and cooked it.......one of the worst things I have ever eaten. I tried to give the extra meat to my foxhound.......even he wouldn't eat. (and he used to dig up dead baby pigs on the farm!!)
Dwight says that Goose grease is worth the cook. LOL.
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By the way, historically speaking, Romanian Jews often ate goose. Jews in the Middle Ages in Romania, Poland, Hungary, etc weren't exactly on the top of the food chain in terms of getting good food. Something to consider. Legend says that the Ashkenazi Jews in Romania and Hungary turned the goose into an early form of pastrami. :-)
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I guess I'm the outlier here: I LOVE GOOSE!
My grandmother was a Czech immigrant (came through Ellis Island in the 1920s), and she made a great goose. She'd roast it in a large roaster at relatively high temperature (400, I think). Every hour or so, she'd tilt the roaster and spoon the excess grease out. Toward the end, she'd take the cover off the roaster to crisp up the skin. And, she'd always include carraway in the seasoning. I don't have a recipe, and haven't observed her for 20ish years, so take this for what it's worth.
I have also cooked goose, and it came out well. A couple times, I roasted it like she did, to the best of my memory. On one occasion (perhaps reading the SE recipe linked above (I haven't looked at it today)), I used a technique that borrowed from Peking Duck. The day before, I dunked the raw goose in boiling water for maybe a minute or so, and it sucked the grease out of the bird. I then let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. The previously clean water looked like dirty dish water when I was done, but the skin crisped up beautifully. Actually, as I did not have a pot big enough, I dunked it from one side and then rotated it and dunked from the other--I don't recall whether I used clean water for both dunks, but I think I did (2 pots).
All that said, goose is a stronger taste than most domestic meats and has a taste some may regard as gamey. I happen to love it, but I suspect it's a love/hate sort of taste, so no matter what you do, some may not like it.
These cooks were all domestic geese, which, by the way, are really expensive right now.Comment
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I was thinking about this some more. Every time my Grandmother would cook a turkey, she'd overcook it to the point it was very dry. I suspect geese hold up to longer cooking, being fattier than a turkey, and much like a brisket, benefit from longer cooking. So applying her goose knowledge to a turkey would lead to a dry bird. Thus, a goose probably needs more time in the oven than a similarly sized turkey. (I'm speculating here.)Last edited by Murdy; December 10, 2025, 09:40 AM.
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