Where can I buy a goose? (Charlottesville, McLean: eat, farms, supermarket)

[farplaner]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

I'm watching the new Anthony Bourdain show--he's in Hong Kong--and that goose looks pretty damn good. I'm really intrigued. All those Brits can't be wrong. (OK, so most of their food is horrible--but this looks like it could be the exception.)

If you go to a Chinese restaurant like XO Taste or Miu Kee and order their roast duck, it tastes pretty much the same (with a lot less meat... I miss roast geese in Hong Kong)

[Caladium]

So..... how did the goose turn out?

[Carlingtonian]

Originally Posted by Caladium

So..... how did the goose turn out?

You know, I ultimately decided to do a Peking chicken. I figured chicken will give us a lot more meat, and it's more of a known quantity.

Just a few minutes ago, I loosened the skin from the rest of the bird, then poured boiling water over it. It's now sitting in the fridge, covered in salt, to dry out the skin for 24 hours.

I'm using this recipe: The Food Lab: How to Make Peking Duck at Home (From Scratch!) | Serious Eats

I decided not to do the goose based on feedback from others here and a Gordon Ramsay video in which the final result just didn't look that appetizing to me. Neither of us is big on dark meat, but we like the crispy skin of Peking duck. BTW, if you go to that video, at 2:45, he issues a hilarious comment about massaging the goose.

I'll cook the chicken tomorrow and post the results here once the food coma wears off.

Everybody enjoy!

[Carlingtonian]

Just remembered I'd promised to follow up, so here I am.

The Peking Chicken turned out to be no bird of paradise. I somehow got the order of tasks wrong, smoking up the house and ending up with chicken so salty it might qualify as jerky. Evidently I was supposed to put the maltose (or other sweet, gooey substitute--in my case Log Cabin Pancake Syrup) on the chicken the day before and THEN salt the bird. I salted it first, then didn't put the syrup on till right before cooking. (Maltose turns out to be really hard to find. Even the Thai grocery didn't have it.)

Had I washed the salt off (rather than merely brushing it off), it probably would have been a lot better. Likewise, had I resisted the urge to dump syrup on the bird while it was still in the oven (the prime culprit behind the Mad Men-worthy smoke level).

At any rate, the final product was edible. The skin really turned out great, though. Which is fortunate, because it was the only thing that could persuade Mrs. Carlingtonian to overlook the fact that I made the house smell like the world's worst Waffle House for about 24 hours.

[spencgr]

sorry, the Peking didn't work out.

Husband roasted the goose, and, once again, delicious!

[ersatz]

You can get goose around here but HOLY SMOKES - they run from at least $12 a pound to $20 to $30 a pound.

But hey, if you get laid off, you can probably make your annual salary back by raising a few. As I have done so in the past, I can tell you they are great at killing snakes and eating garden bugs. The Ancient Romans used them as alarm systems in military camps and later armies have followed suit. Nothing gets past a goose without all $#%@ being raised.

And you can stuff pillows with their feathers.

Multipurpose that Goose and just maybe Christmas dinner can pay for itself.

Please don't hate on me PETA.

[Carlingtonian]

Originally Posted by spencgr

Husband roasted the goose, and, once again, delicious!

Geez, rub it in!

I doff my toque to this gentleman, this master of difficult fowl.

[spencgr]

He, once again, followed the recipe I posted earlier on, and it wasn't any more difficult than roasting a turkey (roasting and basting).

Only difficult part is determining if the actual goose is worth the cost. (Personally, we think it is, but that's us.) As he cooked it for just the two of us, we actually had leftovers. And because of the cost, I am making sure we use every last ounce.

At this point (after three days of goose for lunch, dinner, or both), I moving onto recipes for Goose Noodle Soup, Goose Salad, and Goose Pot Pies....

[springfieldva]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

Not as a pet--as dinner.

So where can I get one of these bad boys? Not a precooked, $40/lb. thing from Whole-ier Than Thou Foods, but the actual raw bird, feet in the air, guts in a bag somewhere inside.

It's too late for Christmas dinner but New Year's dinner will be here before we know it.

I saw goose last year at Shoppers Food Warehouse right around this time. In fact, I just picked up a duck today at Shoppers but I didn't notice if they had any goose left.

[BillHoo]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

You know, I ultimately decided to do a Peking chicken. I figured chicken will give us a lot more meat, and it's more of a known quantity.

Just a few minutes ago, I loosened the skin from the rest of the bird, then poured boiling water over it. It's now sitting in the fridge, covered in salt, to dry out the skin for 24 hours.

I'm using this recipe: The Food Lab: How to Make Peking Duck at Home (From Scratch!) | Serious Eats

I decided not to do the goose based on feedback from others here and a
Gordon Ramsay video in which the final result just didn't look that appetizing to me. Neither of us is big on dark meat, but we like the crispy skin of Peking duck. BTW, if you go to that video, at 2:45, he issues a hilarious comment about massaging the goose.

I'll cook the chicken tomorrow and post the results here once the food coma wears off.

Everybody enjoy!

Yeah, I've done goose a couple times with traditional UK-style recipes.

All-dark meat, but not tasty, moist and tender like duck to my disappointment.

It was more like a really dried out, roast beef! My foodie friends who have also tackled goose had the same results.

Perhaps I focused too much on rendering the fat - of which I got 3 quarts which was great later when I made a duck confit.

British cooking is known to be quite ghastly and it's no wonder the goose is always served with some kind of sweet sauce to help you choke it down!

My dog didn't even like it and turned her nose in disgust!