A friend of mine gave me a grassfed goose of a heritage breed and said, can you cook this and figure out how to make it taste good!? LOL
She informed me that she has a number in her freezer and the one they did, well lets just say that they were not impressed at all.
I have thawed out the goose and its been just sitting and chillin for two days to relax! I intend to allow the breasts/legs/thigh to sit in the fridge for another full day before doing anything with them.. the birds were frozen after butcher before they had a chance to relax, so this is very much needed on the back end.
Now I intend to cut it up into parts, different recipes for different parts so that I can try and give feedback on ways it was cooked.. now this was to be a young bird, hatched that spring, pasture raised, with almost no grain at all.
(Ps, this always makes me laugh a bit, every HUNTER know’s that they are aiming to get that goose that has been stuffing itself on corn or other grain or acorns or fall berries and treats, not the grass-fed only ones, but its all about marketing these days, a mostly grass-fed raised bird that was then “lightly finished on local Non-GMO grain would of course give you a MUCH higher quality bird” but it won’t sell as well)
now I am not knocking the grassfed part of the bird, but its a thin bird, and its not got a lot of fat on it, which by the time fall came on a natural wild bird, they would be plump, and have a good amount of fat in place..
My plan is to break the body into parts, two breast, two leg and thigh, roasting off the rest of the goose, which will lead to a meal with roasted meat and ideally enough left over to do a pick off and a second meal like goose pot pie..
I will render out the fat off the bird for a use as well. Now interesting to me is that this full size young goose is the same weight as one of my spring born, farm raised Muscovy drakes of the same age approx.
The wings are going for stock, and I have not decided if I am going to split the legs and the thighs into different meals or not.. time will tell.
While I am not going to be say that I will use it, anyone got their favorite Grassfed goose recipe they want to share? I’m open to ideas 🙂
Just another Day on the Farm 
Goose breast (deboned and cut onto chunks) sauted in butter with onions and mushrooms (a mix of different types is great) tossed with shashimi sauce and served over rice cooked in chicken stock. Yummy!
o my, that does sound might fine, yum, yum
I wish I would have known about resting previously frozen birds. A friend and I both bought utility turkeys in Dec when they were very cheap. I cooked mine two weeks ago and it was terrible- dry and tasteless. So she brined hers and cooked up yesterday and while it was better than mine, it still wasn’t very good and extremely tough. I wonder if they had be left to relax a bit after thawing if that might have helped. In future tho if I get a cheap bird like that I think I’d cut it up as you have and make it into stews and pot pies.
yes, be it factory or home butcher if you freeze before a good rest, you have to rest the meat on the back side for ranged birds or they will tough as old shoe leather as they say 🙂
Pingback: Baked Goose Breast with Fruit compote side | Just another Day on the Farm