Jamie Oliver’s Roast Goose Slow-Cooked with Christmas Spices
Jamie's Christmas roast goose recipe is packed with festive flavours and has an easy make-ahead option to help you get prepped for the big day.
From the book
Jamie Oliver’s Christmas Cookbook
Jamie Oliver's classic recipes for Christmas
All the recipes you'll need, from basics and starters to party food and edible gifts
Indulgent crowd-pleasers with Jamie's signature twists
Introduction
If you’ve never had roast goose before, it’s an absolute must. This method is reliable and will give you an experience you definitely won’t forget, whether it’s the first meal from it, or using up the lovely leftovers it gives you (if there are any!).
Ingredients
| 1 large (4–5kg) | goose, halved lengthways by your butcher |
| 6cm piece of | ginger |
| 6 large sticks of | cinnamon |
| 6 | star anise |
| 2 tsp | whole cloves |
| olive oil | |
| 2 | oranges |
| red wine vinegar |
Method
Get your meat out of the fridge and up to room temperature before you cook it. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Peel and finely slice the ginger, then, keeping everything quite coarse, lightly crush it in a pestle and mortar with the cinnamon sticks, star anise, cloves and a good pinch of sea salt and black pepper. Rub into the skin of the goose halves, then put both halves skin side up in your biggest deep-sided roasting tray and drizzle with a little oil. Roast for 3 hours (depending on the size of your goose), basting every hour. After the goose has been in for 2 hours, slice the oranges and carefully add to the tray.
The goose is cooked when the leg meat falls easily off the bone. Now you’ve got two choices. Leave it to rest, covered, for 30 minutes, then serve up while it’s hot and crispy-skinned, in which case simply remove the meat to a board, shred the leg meat and slice the breast. Pour all the fat into a jar, cool, and place in the fridge for tasty cooking another day, such as my Best Roast Potatoes (see page 108 of Jamie Oliver’s Christmas Cookbook). Stir a good swig of vinegar into the tray to pick up all the sticky goodness from the base, then drizzle over your meat. Serve with spuds, veg and all the usual trimmings.
Your second choice is to let everything cool in the tray, then place it in the fridge for up to 2 days, with the goose submerged and protected in its own fat, ready to reheat when you need it, getting you ahead of the game and saving you time and oven space another day. To reheat, put the whole tray back in a preheated oven at 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4 and let the goose crisp up for around 30 minutes, or until hot through, then shred, slice and serve as above.
