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How to make the perfect bird (works guaranteed)!
Description
Happy New Year everyone,
We spent this year's christmas at my Mum's house. For Dec.26th my Mum and I prepared a goose. As you know from my previous post, I'm not that experienced with whole birds and my first attempt still turned out a bit dry. That's why I watched every step of my Mum and read the recipe thoroughly.
The secret is, surprise, surprise, SLOW-COOKING! We already knew this, right? So, I will need to get a proper oven at some point, that will allow me to reduce heat to lower than 150°C/302°F, or try the brining-method, next time.
Ingredients
A Bird (goose, turkey, duck...)Our goose weighed more than 5kilos (more than 11 pounds) and easily served four people.
Stuffing material (as you like and prefer)
Instructions
The night before:- Make sure it is completely defrosted (if you bought afrozen one) and all organs are removed. They usually come in a palstic bag inside the bird.
- Maybe remove some quill and left-over feathers.
- Rub the bird with salt from the outside and inside. You may wanna use more salt inside, so that the meat won't taste as bland in the end.
- Stuff the bird with whatever you like. I heard some fill the carcass with dried rice so that the bird blows up while cooking and looks all nice and round...well, I think I prefer good flavour.
We stuffed our goose with quarters of onions and apples, prunes, and the roughly chopped organs, as well as some dried lovage (herb). With a goose you cannot really eat the stuffing afterwards, cause it is soaked in goose fat and really not that pleasant anymore. But it adds a nice flavour. With any other bird, except for maybe duck: Go for it! I always love the stuffing.
- Put the bird on a (deep) baking tray and bake at 180°C/356°F for about an hour.
-Turn down the heat to 80°C/176°F and cook the bird overnight for at least 7 hours. The first person that gets up in the morning gets to turn out the oven. I think we had it in for 9 hours in the end (the goose weight 5.4kg).
Day of goose dinner:
- The goose can now stay in the cold oven until lunch/dinner, whatever. You only need to heat it up for about another 60minutes (not longer!) at 180°C/356°F before you want to eat.
- In order to make the skin nice and crispy, resolve salt in some water and brush the the breast and legs with this mixture. You can also brush the bird with maple syrup, jam or honey for some sweetness. If you have a broiler, turn it on maximum heat and broil the bird for about 5minutes or until the skin has browned.
- Carve and serve with whatever side-dishes you like!
For the sauce:
- Pour the drippings from the tray into a bowl. Wait a few seconds. The fat (and that's a lot with a goose) will separate and be on top (light-golden and almost clear) so that you can easily recognize it and with a spoon skim it off the rest (dark brown) that will be our sauce.
You may wanna mix in some plum jam (or maple syrup, honey etc) and red wine, as well as a tiny little bit of the stuffing. That way the sauce gets a bit thicker, as well. Just blend everything together with a hand blender until smooth and heat it up again. Season to taste if necessary.
This really should work with any bird. A chicken or duck might not take that long. But really, there is not much that can go wrong with 80°C/176°F. It won't get hotter than that. The best indicator that it is fully cooked is when the meat comes off the leg bones...
Notes
Last but not least:
Even though I thought the goose turned out pretty good and was delicious, my Mum still thought the breast was a little dryer than necessary.
So in the first hour at 180°C/356°F try to cook your bird upside down, the back up the breast is lying on the tray. For the slow-cook marathon you can turn it around again.
PS: Don't forget the Schnaps afterwards. You will definitely need one after such a heavy meal. Espresso will work as well, of course...
Comments
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posted 1 decade ago
Thanks so much Julia! Looking forward to trying it. Also, your blog is great, I really like your theme of meat & chocolate, they are my favourites for sure :)
posted 1 decade ago
Thanks, you two!
@Maggie: I would just combine both of the recipes. The second one is not really a recipe anyway. I just tried to figure out how to avoid poultry, when served as a whole bird, from getting too dry. If I had an oven that allowed me to slow cook I would just do the chicken the exact same way as the goose, and only adjust the cooking time for the chicken (probably less, something like 4-5 hours, maybe?). I guess I would have to look this up somewhere...
posted 1 decade ago
Love your recipes Julia! I'm tossing up whether to try this one, or the maple syrup chicken recipe first... I'll need to set aside a weekend to try this I think and maybe cook as a Sunday Roast. Can't wait :)
posted 1 decade ago
Great recipe. Can't wait to try it!