When it comes to fatty fowl, a duck is just an undergrown goose. 
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My parents roast a goose each Christmas. I have always been responsible for deboning it before cooking and I always rendered down any fat I cut off and kept it in the freezer. When I still lived with them that was enough for a whole year until the next goose was ready. Now I live too far away to take the fat with me and they don’t really use it throughout the year. So much goodness going to waste!
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I can see the attraction of a deboned goose, but the cooked carcass of the whole roasted bird, once stripped of any leftover meat, makes a good stock. I make a shepherd’s (gooseherd’s?) pie with the leftovers and gravy made with the stock.
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Oh, they roast the bones with vegetables in the oven the day before the goose is cooked and use it as a basis for the gravy. But the deboning makes the carving so much easier and allows for a lot more filling stuffing to be used. Plus, you can use the carcass right away for the goose itself, rather than waiting until it has been carved.
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A “lot more filling”?
Is that what I’d call stuffing? Apple and potato stuffing inside the carcass, for me.
But I’m sure either way works. I just could not be arsed to debone - and have precious little skill at it.
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Yeah, stuffing I suppose. Bread, milk, onion, parsley, egg. It’s great.
As for the skills: the great thing about evolution is that all skeletons are very alike. Especially with birds: if you know how to debone a chicken you know how to debone a goose, quail or ostrich. And since mammal anatomy isn’t that different either you’re also well on your way to knowing how to butcher pretty much any animal.
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Do try apple and potato some time. Apple lends a great flavour to goose.
I think the recipe came from one of Delia’s books - but it is also online.
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I’ve just been squeezing some juice, but if we have fresh, adding zest is a good idea!
Oh, and happy to report (to you, too @FloridaManJefe) my angling and culinary successes and failures! I caught large mouth bass very first time out! First night, we just gutted it and cooked it whole stuffed with some butter and herbs and kind of pulled it open to eat. It was…okay, I think the thrill of the success made it taste better. Second time out, caught more large mouth, so this time we filleted it, drenched in milk then cornflower and fried in some oil to have with wraps (it was a pretty rustic set up). I was totally unplugged and couldn’t remember your advice, so we were winging it, (and I totally did not expect to actually catch something), but overall a very great first foray into fishing. I’m hooked, pun intended.
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That is excellent success, right off the bat! Awesome!
If you get more largemouth bass, I’d suggest looking into Chinese methods for cooking it whole. I’ve seen some amazing whole fried bass in black bean-garlic sauce.
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There’s also the tried-and-true method used in many cultures, of pouring down a layer of kosher salt, putting in the fish with the tail sticking out, then covering the rest of it in more kosher salt, and baking in the oven.
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I’ve had whole snapper that way. It’s wonderful.
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yay! you go, you awesome fisherperson, you! fish on!
whole-cooked fish is easy and quite the presentation. I like to stuff the cavity with lemon slices, ginger, jalapeno and cilantro, then score the skin and flesh in wide cuts and season with your choice (I like to dust it up with a spicy Jamaican curry, garlic and onion powder, then pop it on the grill) - or as noted above - pitch it between layers of a bed of rock salt and cook it in the oven. pull it off the bones, family style with rice and fresh greens! yums!
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Just curious if anyone has ever made a pie crust like the American one here - with egg whites as the liquid rather than water…
From the drop down on youtube…
For the pie crust:
- 1-2 egg whites
- 8 ounces all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
- 6 ounces cold, salted, European-style butter
I’m thinking about trying it, as it seemed like ti came out really well. Just curious if anyone else has done this.
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Avoiding water so the crust isn’t soggy can be done a number of ways. I can see how using egg whites would work, although I’d be worried that it would bind the crust in a way that would make it less flaky.
My two suggestions (one comes from my grandfather, who was born in 1895, so it’s not a ‘new hack’ by any means):
- Use vodka instead of water in whatever recipe you’re used to (thanks, grandpa);
- Use two different forms of fat, which will have two different melting points, causing more flaky pockets.
Another option, to sort of put point one and two together, is make sure that at least some of the fat is a liquid oil.
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Oh, I will make a glorious soup!
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It’s gotta be 5:00pm somewhere!
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Thanks! When you do this, do you need to scale it first, to avoid getting scales in the flesh when scoring?
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yes, absolutely scale them.
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