Regency Progressive Christmas Dinner + Giveaway

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Welcome to part two of the Progressive Regency Christmas Dinner! I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about Regency Christmas traditions as well as garnering yourself an appetizer recipe on the first stop in the dinner tour. (If you missed part one of the dinner, you can hop over to Michelle Griep's website and check it out.) 

For the main dish of our Progressive Dinner, we're sticking with a very traditional offering, Roast Goose. You can't imagine all the things I've learned while researching how to roast a goose. I'll bullet point some of those here:

• Ideally, the goose you choose should be between 4-6 months old. This avoids having meat that is too tough and gamey.
• Force-meat stuffing is preferred. Force-meat is a mixture of onion, sage, breadcrumbs, sausage, and egg.
• Roasting a goose results in LOTS of goose fat dripping from the bird. In order to avoid an overflow and possible kitchen conflagration, you must check and drain the fat from the roasting pan several times during cooking.
• To help the fat drain, trim excess before roasting, and prick the skin of the bird to allow fat to escape during cooking.
  
• Because of the copious amounts of fat that drip from the goose, as well as the difficulty in cooking the interior before the exterior burns, spit-roasting geese over am open fire wasn't really a thing.
• Most Regency homes did not possess an oven, or in many cases even a stove. Those of the poorer classes took their Christmas goose to the local baker to be roasted. (This continued into Victorian times. Mrs. Cratchit in A Christmas Carol has her goose roasted by the local baker.) The goose would be delivered to the baker, and often the family would attend church and pick up the finished goose on the way home from services.
• Potatoes (prepared with some of that goose fat) and applesauce were common side dishes served with roasted goose.

Here is a poem I came across about roasted goose that seems appropriate:


Roast goose!  Roast goose
Is a thing of beauty as well as use;
As Cook well knows, who has the taste,
To baste—and baste—and baste—and baste,
While he the spit keeps turning,
Above the faggots* burning,
With juice
Profuse
That will soon will produce
The delicate brown
That wins renown,
As well in the country as in the town,
For goose—roast goose.  

 Griset, Ernest, Hood, Thomas.  Griset’s Grotesques; or Jokes drawn on Wood, With Rhymes by T. Hood.  1867.  London
*bundles of wood used for cooking

Photo by Jürgen Howaldt was shared to Wikimedia Commons with a Creative Commons License. Find the original here.

So how did a Regency cook go about preparing roasted goose? Here is a recipe from Martha Lloyd, longtime friend of Jane Austen:

For Regency Goose (From the Jane Austen Cookbook, Black and Le Faye page 81.)

When you roast a goose, turkey, or fowls of any sort, take care to singe them with a piece of white paper, and baste them with butter; dredge them with a little flour, and sprinkle a little salt on; and when the smoak (sic) begins to draw to the fire, and they look plump, baste them again, and dredge them with a little flour, and take them up.

As to geese and ducks, you should have sage and onion shred fine, with pepper and salt put into the belly, with gravy in the dish; or some like sage and onion and gravy mixed together. Put only pepper and salt into...all...sorts of wild fowl. A middling turkey will take an hour to roast; a very large one, an hour and a quarter, a small one, three quarters of an hour. You must paper the breast till it is near done enough, then take the paper off and froth it up. Your fire must be very good. The same time does for a goose.

For modern cooks, I must say, Martha Lloyd was optimistic about the cooking time of a large bird. If you're considering roasting your own goose, try this recipe:

INGREDIENTS 
Serves 10 to 12.

• 1 whole goose, approximately 12 pounds
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 3 pounds small potatoes, ideally red or Yukon gold, peeled

PREPARATION

1. Rinse and dry the goose, rub it inside and out with salt and refrigerate uncovered for at least 6 hours, or overnight. The next morning, rub goose well with paper towels, then allow it to sit on a rack in the kitchen for about an hour, to come to room temperature. Trim wing tips and excess fat from goose and reserve for another use.
2. Preheat oven to 325. Using a clean needle or sharply pointed knife, prick the skin of the goose all over, to allow the fat to run when it roasts. Stick the skin at an angle, so as to pierce just the skin and not the meat of the bird. Season the goose with salt and pepper, then place the rack in a deep roasting pan, and cook for one hour.
3. Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in boiling salted water for approximately 3 to 5 minutes, then drain and reserve the potatoes.
4. After an hour’s roasting, remove the goose from the oven, and pour off the fat from the pan, reserving for another use. Put the goose on its rack back in the pan and add the potatoes. Roast for another hour.
5. After the goose has roasted for 2 hours total, reduce oven to 275 and continue roasting approximately 30 to 45 minutes, about 15 minutes per pound total, or until an instant-read thermometer registers 165 degrees at the center of the breast. Remove goose to a carving board and allow to rest for 20 to 30 minutes before carving. The bird may be served at room temperature if you like.
6. Remove potatoes from pan and keep them warm under foil until ready to serve.

If you would like stuffing for your turkey, I recommend cooking it outside the bird. This helps ensure that both the stuffing and the bird get fully cooked. Here is a recipe for Forcemeat Stuffing:

Ingredients
1 slice ‘stale’ bread – about ½ cup of soft breadcrumbs
1 chopped onion – chopped
2 pork sausage patties
1 tbs.  mixed fresh herbs – sage, thyme, oregano, parsley
1 egg
Salt & pepper to taste
Cornstarch or flour for easier handling.

Preparation
1: Run the bread through a chopper to make fresh chopped bread;
2: In a large bowl, add the bread, herbs and onion;
3: Add the pork patties;
4: Add the egg;
5: Combine all the ingredients together to make a slightly soggy mix;
6: Refrigerate for 30 minutes to allow it to absorb the egg;
7: With a little cornstarch or flour on your hands, make small balls about 1-inch – 2-inches across;
8: Place the stuffing balls around the meat or onto a greased pan;
9: Cook in 350 – 375 oven for about 40 minutes. If your meat is in at a 350 temperature, the stuffing takes about 45 mins, slightly less in a 375 oven. Time is also dependent on the size of the balls. Internal temperature should be 160 and outside should be just crisp. Turn the stuffing balls over at least once during cooking to brown on all sides.

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Thank you so much for stopping by my website and reading all about Christmas Goose. To finish out your Progressive Regency Christmas Dinner and to enter for a chance to win a Zoom Call with Michelle Griep, Julie Klassen, and me, Erica Vetsch, head over to Julie's website where you can learn about Regency dessert and get a fun recipe!