Christmas Dinner - Turkey V's Goose

alibabba

I bought a couple of geese 2 years ago a few months before christmas.
Fed them with the leftovers of the household food waste.
They fattened up well just in time for Christmas.

About a week before christmas, off with his head, down into a barrell of hot water and spent the next 2 hours plucking the feathers off him.

We had him for christmas dinner, it was devine. No turkey would come near taste wise.

It was hard work, nowadays I just pick up one ready to cook from the local butcher.

Also, I kept the goose fat, it is mighty mixed with a bit of poteen and rubbed into a sprained / fractured bone.

D4RK ONION

I know one person who definitely prefers goose!

Posy

I've only ever had turkey for Christmas dinner. I wouldn't want to risk goose in case I didn't like it and it'd go to waste. Although I may end up being converted by all these people saying how yummy goose is...

magentas

I've never had goose but often heard of people having it for christmas dinner and would love to try it
I find turkey can be pretty dry so could be the thing for me.

Are there any other alternatives to turkey besides goose and duck?

anyone ever try this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turducken?

Saganist

We decided after last years "Ham disaster" not to go with tradition this year.

It was decided to have T-bone steak.

T-bones, chips, Pepper Sauce and fried mushroom / onion..

Mmmm.. Looking forward to it :D

r3nu4l

Saganist wrote: »

We decided after last years "Ham disaster" not to go with tradition this year.

It was decided to have T-bone steak.

T-bones, chips, Pepper Sauce and fried mushroom / onion..

Mmmm.. Looking forward to it :D

No sausage-meat stuffing?? :eek:

Saganist

r3nu4l wrote: »

No sausage-meat stuffing?? :eek:

Nope. Not this year.

Might be some French Fried Onion Rings though

dolphin city

magentas wrote: »

I've never had goose but often heard of people having it for christmas dinner and would love to try it
I find turkey can be pretty dry so could be the thing for me.

Are there any other alternatives to turkey besides goose and duck?

anyone ever try this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turducken?

get some lovely fillet beef - okay its frightfully expensive but it is melt in the mouth devine and you can't really go wrong cooking it. You could have it as is, or make a beef wellington with it. Perfect for Christmas. Serve it with potatoes and some maple syrup parsnips

leahyl

Gotta have turkey!! I love it! And i've never found it to be dry....although i read on this forum yesterday a very good idea for making sure it's moist and that's cooking it upside down on the breast for the first hour (i think) so that all the juices flow into the breast! MMMMM must try that!:D

Konata

Pffft, quorn is the way to go lads... >_<

mk6705

Have goose here, very nice. Alot nicer than turkey I think. Have ham with it. We also have turkey on New Year's Day usually, after years of goose it doesn't compare at all. Goose tastes very nice indeed.

Rabble Rabble

To correct some mis-information here.

Turkey has been common enough, for the middle classes, in the UK since the mid-19th century. It certainly does not originate in the 60's. The poor ate goose which was considered a lesser bird. The "posh" movement to goose is relatively modern, the kind of way that the middle and upper classes will move away from something if the lower classes take it up, and move to something if the lower classes abandon it.

Turkey is a lovely meat if cooked correctly. Has to be eaten out of the oven.

Scrooge, famously, bought a turkey for the Crachits who were having a small goose on that day had he not intervened - we see that with the Ghost Of Christmas Present. Goose eaters were poor.

should hope I did,’ replied the lad.
`An intelligent boy.’ said Scrooge. `A remarkable boy.’ Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there — Not the little prize Turkey: the big one.’
`What, the one as big as me.’ returned the boy.
`What a delightful boy.’ said Scrooge. `It’s a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck.’

Ms. Beeton's influential cookbook of 1868 says this:

A noble dish is a turkey, roast or boiled. A Christmas dinner, with the middle-class of this empire, would scarcely be a Christmas dinner without its turkey; and we can hardly imagine an object of greater envy than that presented by a respected portly pate families carving, at the season devoted to good cheer and genial charity, his own fat turkey, and carving it well.

Hotblack Desiato

Boiled turkey? :eek:

Got a turkey from the local butchers this year instead of the usual frozen supermarket bird, about twice the price but well worth it. Must have been a free-range or at least semi-roaming bird as the size of the legs relative to the breast was a lot bigger. The intensively reared birds are all about producing the most breast meat as quickly as possible and flavour and texture take a back seat.

Gave it an hour at gas mark 6 and then six hours at gas mark 4, removing the foil for the last hour and a half of cooking. Didn't bother to butter baste it and it wasn't needed. Put a few streaky rashers over the breast. Neck was stuffed with 1lb sausagemeat, 1lb breadcrumbs and a large chopped onion, another onion cut in two in the body cavity, a little bit of salt and a few herbs on top when it went into the oven, and that was it. Basted it in its own juices every hour. The end result was delicious, really moist with lovely flavour, a cheap frozen turkey isn't nearly as nice and is more prone to drying out (although you can counteract that with butter basting, etc.)

Anyone complaining about dry turkey is eating a bird that hasn't been cooked correctly.

Trying a goose for the first time at New Year, looking forward to it!