Xmas Goose. My mothers recipe. Comes from Prussia. Through the DNA for centuries!
So you take a naked young goose. About 11 pounds. Heat the oven to 350. Pour yourself a glass of wine.
Then you make a rub. Mince a bulb of garlic, with olive oil, salt and pepper, and some fresh herbs. Rub this inside the cavity of the goose, and outside all over and let it sit. And BTW the goose should be at room temperature when you do this.
Then you make some stuffing. Chop up a few apples and oranges. Add some bread crumbs and salt and pepper. Add some cloves and a cup of port and mush this all together and stuff it inside the bird.
Then you truss up the bird with needles and thread, like so. Then you put it in the oven. Tits down. But before you do so, you poke the entire bird with a fork, over and over again, to allow the fat to run out.
So then you put the thing in the oven and leave it there. Roughly 25 minutes for each pound of bird. Baste the thing frequently. After about ninety minutes it should look like this. At this point crank up the heat to 425, until the bottom of the bird is nicely crisp.
Meanwhile, boil some new potatoes, and slather these with butter and salt and pepper.
Then put on some red cabbage with nutmeg, cloves, garlic and orange peel. And of course a bit of the duck fat.
And voila. You have the perfect goose. (The gravy is proprietary, and would involve a whole seperate thread.)
Cut up, it looks like this. (The other half is still in the warming oven.)
A merry, merry!