I hope you all had a great Christmas and some delicious food. I want to share the Christmas goose preparations and recipe which was a real success and totally delicious. Inspired by and following the recipe by one of my favourite celebrity chefs: Jamie Oliver and his Best Day-Ahead Goose.

As you know my preparations for my Christmas Goose started on the 23 December and then was cooked on Christmas Eve. I was a little nervous how well this would work cooking the day before but also knew it would make things so much easier on Christmas day. I trusted Jamie’s recipe and the storing and re-heating instructions put me at rest. So here’s the recipe:

Ingredients 1 goose (mine was 6.5kg, local and free-range) | Chinese Five Spice | Clementines (I used 4) | Salt | Ginger (2 large pieces) | Rosemary | Olive Oil

Preparations Remove all visible goose fat from the neck of the bird. Prick the goose all over especially around the goose cavity to help release the fat. Put the goose onto a roasting dish preferably on a supporting rack so the bird does not sit in its own fat as it’s released. Mix Chinese Five Spice and some Salt together and rub liberally all over the goose skin as well as inside. Chop the Ginger finely and mix with the Rosemary and a drizzle of Olive Oil. Chop 3 Clementines in half and put a small spoonful of this mixture onto each clementine half and pop in the goose cavity. Brush a little Olive Oil over the goose (as fat renders fat and therefore makes it more crispy). Cover tightly with foil and if possible leave over night for flavours to develop. I did all this on 23 December so it was ready to cook on Christmas Eve.

Cooking I started cooking my goose on a low heat and slowly on Christmas Eve morning. At regular intervals it is necessary to drain the fat from the roasting dish and also baste the bird. You do get a lot of fat from a goose but it is great for roasting your Christmas potatoes and vegetables. When cooked through I turned the oven off and left the meat to cool.

Carving When cool it is a lot easier to handle. Pull the legs and wings of the goose and remove all meat popping into another roasting dish. Remove all skin and then the breast meat and set aside. Remove any other meat from the carcass and add to the meat in the roasting dish, shred this with 2 forks, like with Chinese shredded duck. Chop some of the skin finely and again add to the dish. Next reheat some of the goose fat in the microwave, cut the remaining clementine in half and squeeze into the fat, add a little at a time to the meat and mix together. Don’t add too much, the goose just needs to be slightly coated. Now get the breasts and carve, lay this meat on top of the shredded meat and brush with the fat and clementine mixture. Cover the dish with foil and put into the fridge until the next day. I also kept the rest of the skin to crisp up and reheat the next day.

Serving This is the real simple part, on Christmas Day all you need to do is pop the covered dish into the oven for about 25 minutes before you want to serve. How simple is that? And a lot less stressful.

Our Christmas Goose was delicious and very moist, I think this is because the meat was coated lightly with the fat, and this is the part which put my mind at rest when reading the recipe and deciding to cook my meat the day before. I’m sure you can use this method with over meat when cooking up a feast.

Hints & Tips Goose fat is a good fat and as I said great for roasting; save all the goose fat for this and it can even be frozen. We used the

Credits:
Jamie Oliver www.jamieoliver.com
Jamie’s Best Day-Ahead Goose www.jamieoliver.com/magazine/recipes-view.php?title=best-day-ahead-goose