tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11693258556451856192024-03-19T05:03:09.345-07:00the goose is cookedexpreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13339700142550461194noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1169325855645185619.post-77711813086272830232013-03-18T10:06:00.003-07:002013-03-18T10:06:41.579-07:00IN WHICH MY GOOSE IS COOKED<div style="text-align: justify;">
I cooked a goose for Christmas, and it was delicious, but Jesus (so to speak), it was a lot of work.<br /><br />
The superlative butchers at Golden Gate Meat Company in San Francisco
managed to get hold of a few dozen geese from Grimaud Farms--air-chilled
(hence no water weight added, as is customary with most other poultry)
and never frozen: beautiful birds. Early on the morning after I'd
brought home my ten-pounder, I woke up remembering a recent experience
with a duck that I had cut up in order to braise the legs, roast the
breasts rare, and make a nice stock from the back and other scraps; and I
thought, Well, that would be a dandy way to deal with the goose. I
also remembered, however, that the anatomy of that duck had been
sufficiently different from that of birds I was more familiar with that I
had really been digging around and doing some damage to its lovely dark
flesh. Moreover, the connective tissue holding the joints together had
been extremely hard to slice through. Now I was looking at a critter
five times bigger, with pretty much the same anatomy, and tendons
probably five times tougher.<br /><br />
And so I'm thinking, Time to call the guys at Golden Gate. Sure enough,
they'd be glad to cut it up for me. Therefore, as sheets of rain
slashed across the Embarcadero and the Bay at high tide splashed against
the piers, I made my way through a gray eight a.m. Sunday to the Ferry
Building to find Golden Gate--<i>Closed Sundays</i>? Naw! Who had I
been talking to, then? I banged on the steel gate, hollered through
it. I could see a guy mopping inside, but he didn't look up. I banged,
I hollered. Finally he saw me and disappeared into the back. Soon
appeared one of the butchers I recognized--the one, in fact, who had
answered the phone. Padlocks click, in I goes, a discussion of the
surgery ensues. Ten minutes later, one bag contains drumsticks, thighs,
and first joints of wings with a knob of breast meat attached to each;
another has the whole breast, un-split; and a third the carcass, wing
tips, neck, giblets, heart, and liver--all but the last the makings of
my stock. With Christmas Eve dinner not till the next night, I could
make stock that day and let the fat rise in the fridge overnight. Also I
could do my braise.<br /><br />
I thought I would brown the meat and bones on top of the stove. Not a
good idea. First of all it took six frying pans, all six burners.
Second, despite my assiduous drying, the fat-spatter was unbelievable.
Goose napalm. So, a five-hundred oven. Lotta spattering there too, of
course, but at least it was contained. Also in the oven I browned
onions (skin on), carrots, and celery; together, for both the braise and
the stock. I poured off the rendered fat--yeow--more than three cups.<br /><br />
I gave the stock a two-hour head start so I could use some of it in the
braise. I managed to fit the meat into two large cast-iron skillets,
then wedged in the now-caramelized vegetables, added some stock, thyme,
and bay, discovered that my back-yard parsley was dead, and poured half a
bottle of Loire (unoaked) chardonnay into each pan. Up to a simmer,
and into a three-hundred oven. Wearing this great little timer around
my neck, I could "remember" to check on everything once an hour. Barely
bubbling, just right.<br /><br />
After four hours, the goose drumsticks were still so hard I could have
cracked somebody's skull with one. After five, they were merely
inedibly tough. Good thing this was the day before.<br /><br />
Finally, after six and a half hours and several addings of water, they
began to soften, and that was enough for the day. I put the meat in a
bowl in the refrigerator and added the braising liquid to the stock
pot. By now the carcass was breaking apart, which was good--more
gelatin in the stock, more unctuosity in the sauce to come. I fished
out all the big stuff and smushed it hard in the strainer to squeeze out
whatever juice I could, then strained the rest, again smushing anything
smushable to a paste. All the solids could now go to compost and the
beautiful, though very greasy, stock to the fridge.<br /><br />
Christmas Eve morning, the fat having nicely congealed, I scraped it off
the top of the stock. What lay beneath was a sparkling-clear
consommé. Beauty, thy name is stock! It did need to reduce by about
half. No problem. That done, I put the goose in a bit of it and put
that again in a 300 oven. After an hour and a half or so, the meat was
falling off the bone; I took that out and kept it warm.<br /><br />
When the oven reached 450, I roasted the breast to an internal
temperature of 145. The skin was tight and crisp, the meat bright
blood-red.<br /><br />
I took a quart or so of the stock to reduce further for a sauce. I
julienned an orange peel, blanched it, and added that. I just happened
to have three kinds of oranges on hand--a regular
navel, a Cara Cara, which has flesh sort of grapefruity-pink, and a
Clementine. I cut out "filets" from the first two and just sectioned
the third because it comes apart so nicely, and set those aside. The
juice left over I added to the sauce, followed by a wee tad of butter
for viscosity and what the hell. I completely forgot to chop, cook, and
add the liver.<br /><br />
After resting it for forty minutes, I carved the breast meat off the bone and sliced it crosswise into thin medallions.<br /><br />
Braised meat went on one end of the platter, rare breast on the other. I
chucked the little orange quarter-moons here and there
amidst both.<br /><br />
It was very, very good. But once, I think, will have been enough.
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expreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13339700142550461194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1169325855645185619.post-77141867686665060932013-03-18T09:57:00.002-07:002013-03-18T09:57:19.307-07:00The Goose Is Cooked<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWpoBNxZgbjQGTbwQ_qwLhUievBA3fiIlxKJusZX36yqZe-Unx-ed6ONQQxCkCyAJ0rQtAqUPBkim-7EOR3_pXjFzyYsrd7krIi_nvhAKJEQYurL59REC6WNifADySC5VaxOQEOr4GIuM/s1600/john-huss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWpoBNxZgbjQGTbwQ_qwLhUievBA3fiIlxKJusZX36yqZe-Unx-ed6ONQQxCkCyAJ0rQtAqUPBkim-7EOR3_pXjFzyYsrd7krIi_nvhAKJEQYurL59REC6WNifADySC5VaxOQEOr4GIuM/s200/john-huss.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>The Goose Is Cooked</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">More observations about the reformer, Jon Huss, the man with foes in high places. The movement that was to become the Moravian Church owes its inspiration and beginning to Master Hus. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the last</span> Moravian post we learned that Hus, a Roman Catholic priest, was judged a heretic and sentenced to a cruel death.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Hus went as requested to the council at Constance. He was optimistic, sending a letter to friends joking that <i>'the goose is not yet cooked and it not afraid of being cooked.'"</i></span><i> </i></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">The council before whom he stood in judgment made an offer to Hus - <i>"recant or die."</i> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Hus turned his face from his judges and prepared for his final journey on earth. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana;">The council vested Jon Hus in Eucharistic vestments and defrocked him. His vestments removed with appropriate curses which concluded with the words, <i>"we commit your soul to the Devil"</i>. A paper crown was placed on his head with a foul inscription and marched to the place of death.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana;">"He was bound to the stake with a sooty chain wrapped around his neck. Wood was piled to his chin ... He was given one final chance to save his life by recanting all his errors and heresies ..."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: black;">Hus is recorded to have said, <i>"God is my witness that ... the principal intention of my preaching and of all my other acts or writings was solely that I might turn men from sin. And in that truth of the Gospel that I wrote, taught, and preached in accordance with the sayings and expositions of the holy doctors, I am willing gladly to die today."</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana;">"The signal was given. The executioner set the pyre ablaze. From the smoke and flames that shot upward into the summer sky, Hus's voice could be heard once more, this time in song. <i>'Jesus, son of the living God, have mercy one me.'</i> Master Jan Hus sang these words three times. The goose was cooked. He died singing."</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana;">That is not the end of the story.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUCoyB12-rH6VhqiyNlwFeHXJPpCgrBfviX-4tf5PbIZHPtcRnjRGHYVvNA4MtB3nhCL07hrXsAQX-aWFXluFaz0-VcPKEEb2GK42J0XpWTYIXhRd7X7HYbY5GFXB4iq7DhKZF2QtoVDY/s1600/JohannesPaul2-portrait+1993.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUCoyB12-rH6VhqiyNlwFeHXJPpCgrBfviX-4tf5PbIZHPtcRnjRGHYVvNA4MtB3nhCL07hrXsAQX-aWFXluFaz0-VcPKEEb2GK42J0XpWTYIXhRd7X7HYbY5GFXB4iq7DhKZF2QtoVDY/s200/JohannesPaul2-portrait+1993.jpg" width="163" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pope John Paul II - 1993</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: black;">In 1999 Pope John Paul II told an international symposium, "<i>Today ... I feel the need to express deep regret for the cruel death inflicted on Jan Hus.</i>' He commended Hus's <i>'moral courage in the face of adversity and death." --</i> Portions adapted from Issue 68 (Vol. XIX, No 4), of Christian History magazine.</span></span></span></div>
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expreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13339700142550461194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1169325855645185619.post-43636644316722858382011-11-14T06:50:00.001-08:002011-11-14T06:50:04.470-08:00the goose is cookedHello fellow friends from all around the world, welcome.expreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13339700142550461194noreply@blogger.com0