What to do with leftover goose?

Dear LTH,

Antonius and I had a roast goose Christmas Day, and there's quite a bit of meat left over. Antonius had a thought of grinding it up in the Cuisinart to be part of a filling for homemade ravioli, but a bout of tendonitis is making that pasta project less attractive.

I was thinking instead of something Chinese -- surely duck with rice noodles fried extra crispy wouldn't be bad with goose substituted for the duck?

Anyone have a recipe for duck with rice noodles?

Or other suggestions for goose, round 2?

Thanks,
Amata

Amata,

How about a pot of Garbure, the French Provincial cabbage soup often made with duck or goose confit? What could possibly be bad about braising some beautiful cruciferous vegetables in goose fat and drippings? What the heck, why not throw the entire carcass in. Some lentils maybe? Garbanzos...?

While we're on the subject of soup, in Sam's liquor store this afternoon, I saw some beautiful Parma ham hocks, remnants of their sliced proscuitto, at a fairly inexpensive price, which would be perfect for a garbure, minestrone, or a caldo gallego.

Let us know what you decide to make.

How about a warming winter gumbo with goose and andouille. If you don't have a lot of goose, supplement it with some dark meat of a free range chicken.

If it isnt too late, save as much of the goose fat and skin as you can and render it. The fat will last almost forever in the fridge, and it is great to cook with. I cook a goose or 2 a year just for the fat.
-Will

WillG wrote:If it isnt too late, save as much of the goose fat...

Will,

We always do save the fat and use it (up until Lent) for Bratkartoffeln and other northern sorts of dishes.

The goose we got this year was a free range bird and it struck me as a bit on the tough side compared with the ghosts of geese past.

Both Evil Ronnie's and YPWill's suggestions sound excellent. I did a quick search for garbure and came upon the recipe on this webpage: GARBURE
Consultation with Amata on which path to go is needed.

Thanks to ER and the two Wills. Further recommendations are still very much welcome; we won't be doing anything with the goose till tomorrow.

Antonius

Re: The Bird & Andouille Gumbo - I always use Paul Prudhomme's recipe, and often substitute extra dark meat chicken or duck. I'm sure goose would work fine as well.

The recipe is online Here.

Too late now (your goose is cooked ...) but Elizabeth David has a marvelous recipe for alicot, goose giblet stew, in her book on French provincial cooking. Alas, the rules of the board do not permit me to copy the recipe, but I will be glad to email it if necessary.

Chapulin wrote:Alas, the rules of the board do not permit me to copy the recipe, but I will be glad to email it if necessary.

To clarify on the rules of the board, its' really an issue of copyright. You can provide a list of the ingrediants because they are not copyrighted. The trick is adapting/modifying the instructions, which are copyrighted.

I have all of Elizabeth David's books after discovering her book, Spices, Salts and Aromatics in the English Kitchen while in London in 1977. I love her narrative style, which is often how her recipes are written as well. I've read some commentary on her cookbooks, where they felt they were incomplete recipes. Sure, she doesn't go into blinding detail like Julia Child, Elizabeth David expects you know how to cook and fill in the blanks yourself.

Anyway, we welcome recipes though we hope they are adapted enough to avoid copyright infringement.

Thanks for the lead!

Regards,

chapulin wrote:Too late now (your goose is cooked ...) but Elizabeth David has a marvelous recipe for alicot, goose giblet stew, in her book on French provincial cooking. Alas, the rules of the board do not permit me to copy the recipe, but I will be glad to email it if necessary.

Not too late... The old goose gets retooled the morrow and the giblets have been saved as well (frozen)... I have that cookbook by Ms. David and will go look it up. She was wonderful...

Thanks for the tip... Somehow I hadn't thought of checking in there... silly me...

Antonius

I had goose with red cabbage (I'm still working on your cabbage post) once in Verona and it was superb. I can't remember what it was called and haven't found a recipe I can recommend. But if I had left over goose, I'd try making paglia e fieno con prosciutto e piselli, but substitute some shredded goose for the prosciutto.

Another thought: in the north of Vietnam they sometimes make eggrolls (cha gio, called nems in Hanoi) with goose instead of pork. Or you could just go to Argyle St and..., never mind.

Thanks to all for the interesting responses. What we ended up doing drew on all of the suggestions a bit (except for Choey's cha gio!).

We made a hearty soup with beans: first, of course, using the giblets and goose neck we had saved in the freezer to make a stock similar to the Elizabeth David one which chapulin recommended; we threw in the leg bones and goose skin as well. In a separate pan we sauted onions, garlic, and a sliced Spanish chorizo (in place of YourPalWill's suggested andouille). We then added a little tomato and passata (Italian tomato puree), diced potatoes, a handful of roughly chopped dandelion greens, parsley, salt and pepper, and - as Evil Ronnie suggested - some cabbage (red). We let that simmer until the cabbage was tender before adding already cooked Greek giant beans and the goose stock, and letting it all simmer a while longer.

Choey's analogy between goose meat and prosciutto reminded us that reheating roasted meat can sometimes produce a less than optimal flavor. We treated the bulk of our reserved goose meat as if it were prosciutto, then: we added it to the soup right at the end, just long enough to heat through before serving. We had the soup in large bowls ladled over slices of stale Italian bread. It was hearty and comforting, a simple meal especially appreciated after the blow-outs of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - and having gotten such interesting input from fellow cooks made the project all the more enjoyable. Thanks again to all of you.

L'oie une autre fois

There was still a bit of goose meat left over after our goose stew the other night and I couldn't allow it to go to waste. I decided to try to come up with a use that would work for our lunch today. Being in the mood for pasta, I thought in terms of making a sort of ragoût/ragù with which to dress some noodles. Since the flavour of reheated roasted meat is not optimal, I wanted to make an intensely flavoured base in which the goose would be added at the end and the flavour of the meat would be brought together with something that through longish cooking and intense reduction of the liquids would have a unified taste. All in all, it seemed to work quite well and I intend to try the dish again using fresh meat sometime soon.

Here are the ingredients in roughly the order they were added:

olive oil
battuto of usual aromatics with prosciutto
teaspoon of Jordanian concentrated tomato paste
dried porcini mushrooms, soaked and chopped
mushroom soaking liquor
small amount of condensed chicken stock
good dose of dry Sicilian red wine
three small San Marzano peeled tomatoes
small shot of passata di pomodoro
four sprigs of thyme
large dose of freshly ground black pepper
a touch of freshly ground nutmeg
a touch of ground cinnamon
a pinch of sugar

mafaldine

shredded goose meat
chopped flat-leaf parsley
a few spoons of pasta cooking water

parmigiano reggiano
more freshly ground black pepper

The steps were:
1.) frying of battuto and paste.
2.) addition of mushrooms and liquids.
3.) initial reduction of liquid.
4.) addition of tomato products, herb and spices.
5.) prolonged cooking, occasionally adding a little water when needed.
6.) cooking of pasta.
7.) brief cooking of pasta in pan with sauce.
8.) goose meat stirred in and briefly warmed up.
9.) serving with garnish of parsley.
10.) parmigiano and black pepper available for facultative addition at table.

Again, many thanks for the suggestions from fellow LTHers; as Amata stated above, we drew on several of them in using up the present leftovers and also got excellent ideas for further utilisations of the golden goose.

Antonius