Roast wild goose

I have been depleating my deepfreezer as it is becoming to hard to find things. I was looking for something to thaw out and heat up when I came in from work on Thursday night and chanced upon a wildgoose, shot at the end of last season (mid January) I thought that would make a nice Sunday roast, so out it came to slowly defrost.

It wasn't a large bird (about the size of a large duck), they may seem big at first but they are no way comparible with a tame reared with clipped wings. They have a much more gamey flavour and not half as much fat as the farmed goose.

I washed it inside and out, rubbed it with salt and pepper and popped half a lemon up its anal vent. I placed it on a trivet of roughly cut root veg in a roasting tin, added a 1/2 ltr of vegetable stock, covered with foil and popped into a pre-heated oven at 200°C for 30mins and then reduced to 180°C until done (the juices run clear).


In the mean time I made some forced meat stuffing balls and roasted these in the lower part of the oven at the same time.

Stuffing recipe,

250g of 50% pork and 50%beef mince
150g of bread crumbs
1 large shallot diced fine
1 spoonful of garlic powder (I use powder as you do not come across lumps)
A good handful of fresh herbs (I used sage, parsley, thyme and oregano)
1 large egg
Salt and pepper to taste
Knob of butter
Some stock to moisten

Mix all ingredients together and form into balls (if the mixture is to dry and breaking up add some goose fat)

Butter a small roasting tin place the balls on this, cover and put in at the bottom shelf in the oven when you reduce the heat to 180°C.

Served it with Curly Kale (Grünkohl) and fried potatoes, bacon and onions  (Bratkartoffeln mit speck und zwiebel).

It was very tasty and as eating flying game is a bit of a lottery (you don't know its age until it drops from the sky) this one was young and tender.