A New Year's Day Feast

Some weeks ago Tabitha, who works for a large supermarket branch, rang me up to tell me that they had frozen geese in their store freezer which had been reduced to £10 for a quick sale and did I want one?

Fresh winter vegetables for the feast

Well - of course I want one, especially at that price.  So Tabitha acquired it for me and it came to live in our freezer while I pondered what to do with it.

I decided to have it for New Year's Day lunch and invited some Foodie Friends to join us in what I had, in all honesty, to describe as a Food Adventure.

Make sure you sit the goose on a rack. It will create huge quantities of fat which you don't want it sitting in

I had never previously roasted a whole goose.  I had eaten roast goose, many years ago when I first moved to Sheffield and joined my cousin and her family for Christmas.  I have cooked a goose fillet which, whilst very tasty, was very tough.  I have hot potted a goose fillet, which was extremely delicious. But not actually roasted a whole one.  So I consulted my cookbooks and various websites and eventually decided to follow these instructions from the Donald Russell website.  The only variation I made was to reduce the oven temperature to 170d for the final hour. The goose took about 3 hours to cook, and I left it to rest on its roasting rack and tray, covered in foil, for about 45 minutes.

While we were waiting for the goose to roast, I set the table

We had the goose with roasted Highland Burgundy Red potatoes and with a selection of vegetables which we gathered from the garden in the morning - tiny brussells sprouts, which were delightfully sweet, cabbage, broccoli, rainbow chard - and some carrots which we did not grow ourselves.  I made a gravy with stock I had made with the giblets and neck. And we had it with a little pot of red and white currants which I had simmered with a little demerara sugar.  It was all extremely delicious

It's ready to rest now

Mind you, when they say that roast goose is very nice but that it does generate a rather large quantity of fat - roast goose is extremely nice but it generates the most ENORMOUS quantity of fat.  I am planning to strain it through muslin today and freeze it in portions.  We're going to be eating goose fat roasted potatoes almost for ever by the look of it!!!!!

Condiments: stewed red and white currants and goose gravy

We had a steamed pudding for dessert, into which I had stirred a generous quantity of mixed dried fruit which had been soaking in brandy for a week.  We had it with custard.  That too was very nice.  Nothing like as heavy as a proper Christmas pudding, but every bit as festive.

Ready to serve

My New Year's Day feast