Anonymous Tue May 23 19:38:32 2006

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My wife, who likes to volunteer me for challenges, decided to get a goose for Christmas

dinner this year. We\'d planned to have it in early afternoon, but shifted dinner to suppertime

so we could lunch on the clam chowder we didn\'t eat on Christmas Eve because the

cocktail party we\'d gone to turned out to be a buffet with beef tenderloin, onion tarts, and

other goodies. I\'d never done a goose myself before, and had only vague memories of

helping with one many moons ago, so I did some research. The big challenge, as you

probably know, is the thick fat layer on domestic geese. The recipes I turned up called for

roasting, and I didn\'t want to spend too long a time cooking it, so I planned to use a Weber

kettle with small fires on either side of charcoal and wood (apple, since I have an unlimited

supply). The barbecuing itself was actually uninteresting -- about two and a half hours (with

the air temp at the top of the kettle in the 300\'s F.) until it reached an interior temperature

of 170 F in the inner thigh. Apparently goose is hard to go too far wrong with; it doesn\'t dry

out as badly as a lot of birds when overcooked. The interesting part of the process was the

preparation for cooking, which I got from a Xerox my wife had acquired somewhere (I don\'t

have the reference on me, but think it was out of the old Cook\'s Magazine): Choose a

smallish goose; anything over 13 lb. is likely to be old and tough. A day, or better two,

before you plan to cook it, take your largest stockpot or lobster pot, fill it half full with water,

and bring to a boil. Remove the neck and innards from the goose\'s cavity and pluck any

remaining quills with pliers. Cut around the wishbone with a sharp knife and remove it

(anyone know why they want this done?). Puncture the goose\'s skin all over with a sharp

point (the letter recommended a barding needle; I just used an instant-read thermometer),

coming in at an oblique angle to avoid puncturing the meat below the subcutaneous fat.

Put the goose in the boiling water for about a minute (or until \