How to: Cook a goose

Right. Now that we've all had time to recover from the excesses of Christmas, I feel I can sit back with a sense of clinical detachment and tell you about the goose. The goose has been gaining popularity as a Christmas meal among yuppiehood, no doubt due to the influence of celebrity chefhood, because people are getting bored of pasty white turkey, and because geese can't easily be bred intensively, which appeals to the judicious carnivore's conscience. All that aside, though, goose meat has a much more intense and satisfying flavour than turkey. The goose is also something like thirty percent fat by body weight (I exaggerate perhaps, but it's a ridiculous amount of fat), which makes it much less likely to turn out dry.

Sophie Grigson has a couple of good recipes for goose stuffing with cranberry and sage. Stuff the cavity with the stuffing and an onion. You might just want to put one stuffing inside and cook the other in balls outside, as it reduces the cooking time. Seal the cavity with string (or improvise with wooden skewers....). Cover in foil and cook in an oven pre-heated to 190 degrees Celsius. I suggest using a deep oven tray to collect all the fat at regular intervals, which you can use to baste the goose and roast vegetables, and store for future use. Reckon on about half an hour per kilo plus twenty, and remove the foil for the last half hour.

1. The beginning.....

2. Stuffing the goose

3. Sealing the cavity

4. Ready to cook

5. The end product, end section

6. The end product, side elevation

7. Goose fat

Recipe competition: Daube

This one is from BJ. A French stew of beef, mushrooms and sundried tomatoes cooked in wine with an orange rind. I can think of no more deserving recipe to inaugurate my brand new 22cm cerise Le Creuset cocotte..... it's a really easy recipe, though it does take time to cook, so it's better suited for those slow, lazy winter Sundays (i.e. EVERY Sunday until June.......). It's a substantial, rich stew with earthy flavours and a twist of tangy citrus, and goes well with rice, pasta or potatoes. And having just had some leftovers, I can confirm that it doesn't suffer from being left in the fridge a couple of days. It does, however, help if your wine bottle doesn't have a powdery cork that decomposes upon opening and causes red wine to spray all over your face, white top and kitchen appliances........

Apple and cranberry steamed pudding with sticky toffee sauce

For the filling:
4 eating apples, peeled, cored and cubed
25 grams unsalted butter
1 tablespoon golden caster sugar
50 grams walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

For the sauce:
175 grams light muscovado sugar
125 grams unsalted butter
200 grams crème fraîche

For the batter:
175 grams unsalted butter
130 grams golden caster sugar
3 eggs, beaten
150 grams self-raising flour

Apples, cranberries in a pan
Cook with butter if you can.
Add the sugar when they’re brown,
Leave aside to cool them down.

Crème fraîche now with butter and sugar
Over low heat melt together,
Bring to boil and shortly simmer.
Toffee sauce, not for the slimmer.

Add chopped walnuts to the filling.
Caref’lly now and without spilling
Pour some of the toffee sauce;
When a third’s gone you can pause.

Grease a basin with some butter,
Quickly now, you must not stutter.
Cream the butter and the sugar,
Gently add the beaten eggs.
Fold the flour and then the salt,
Steady though, no room for fault.

O’er the filling next pour the batter,
Think not how you’ll end up fatter.
The whole thing you must now seal,
Listen up, ‘tis a big deal:

Take some parchment and some foil,
This part’s worth the ensuing toil.
For the pudding to expand
I must now make a demand,
That you take the double sheet
And in the centre make a pleat.

Tie this lid down with a string,
Now the cooking can begin.
Put some water in a pot
Just to halfway up the top
Of the basin, lid up-facing.
Cover well until we stop.

Ninety minutes it will need,
A long time steaming ‘tis indeed.
But your guests will want some coffee
While you warm the remaining toffee,
And with this pudding you’ll succeed
To disgust them with their greed.

Santoku

On countless kitchen counters cutting
Plump tomatoes, new potatoes, slicing
Leeks and lettuce, beets and peppers,
Triads of scallion, garlic, ginger next,
There’s a dinner to be fixed.

Breasts of chicken now we mince,
Flesh gives way, but I don’t whince.
Giblets, joints and skin and bones,
Above his dulcet tenor tones
His artful skill my master hones.

Quickly now, the squash needs dicing,
The rest is there, ready for spicing.
Caref’lly next those herbs you’ll chop;
They’ll eas’ly bruise if my heel you drop.
My rhythm follow, never stop.

On you my virtues I bestow,
With time our mutual bond will grow.
And now we’ve done this one last task,
One final thing of you I ask:
A whetstone, please, my crimes to mask.