The Christmas Goose

The GOOSE is cooked.

  REMINDER!  This is ***NOT*** a cooking site!   I do not do the most cooking around this house…  The ‘MAN’ does.  🙂 

I promised Wendy that I would attempt to describe the process of our creating our Christmas Feast.   

The bird was terrific!   Hub really did slave all afternoon to prepare our meal and he deserves all the  praise and hugs and kisses;  it was fabulous.    The recipe can be found at Food Network’s Emeril Lagasse Recipe Collection.    Emeril’s Goose looks like this:    

I forgot to take photos once the food made it into serving bowls.    The potatoes were scrumptious (homegrown rosemary from MY garden!) and I overcooked the broccoli-cheese-rice casserole; but still divine.    The gravy from the port reduction (simmering for over an hour:  port, carrots, onions, peppers, YUM!) was superb!     OH…   By far the best food we had this Holiday Season.    and that’s mostly due to the LOVE that my wonderful husband pored into this feast…   He’s awesome. 

QUESTIONS:

Do you use inexpensive port or do you go all out?      A:    We actually had to go buy MORE port because I obviously did not read the recipe right and failed to purchase the required quantity…    And the HUB had to go do that purchasing (in the middle of the whole process because the ONE glass of Chardonnay I imbibed while sitting on my fat ass and WATCHING Hub chop the veggies, etc, had affected me too much!   (I knew I was tipsy because I loaded the dog into the back of the truck by jumping in the back of the truck myself as an example and then promptly FELL OUT of the truck.  At which time, I concluded (or did I deduce?) that it was not a good idea I drive anywhere…)    I don’t know how much the Sheffield Cellars Oak Mellowed Tawny Port of California cost me but prob <$10.   The second bottle that Hub bought, Rainha Santa of Portugal has a sticker $9.99.   

How much does the goose weigh?    OH crap….  I forget!   I think it was approx 12 pounds…   Cost ~$32?     I’ll update this after checking with the chef…   [update:  wethinks it was ~12 pounds…]

Do you prefer it over turkey?    I don’t have a preference.   I do like grilled turkey – it all depends.   I personally cannot stand leftover turkey.    expect in deli carved sandwich slices, maybe.   But left over big cooked turkey is not to my liking…   This goose was awesome, but it was NEW and exciting and slaved over for me.   SO it was definitely better than hohum turkey…

I’ve heard that when cooking a goose the high grease content is apt catch fire in the oven; is this really a problem or a myth?    Our oven did not catch fire from any grease splatters or whatever.    It IS a greasier meat but only Hub noticed that during the prep – not the finished cooked bird.   It’s dark meat.   Very tender…   I have no idea of any myths or not…

I had also made noise way back when we thunk up the idea of cooking the Christmas Goose, that I would make Christmas Pudding like the Brits do…   But I didn’t get around to it.