How the [Old] Goose is Cooked

What to do with an old goose that has escaped the butcher's knife for several Christmases running? Geese are most tender at the end of their first year, and so we try to get all of a year's hatchlings butchered in the late fall of that same year. That gives them plenty of time to get to a good size, but not enough time to get old and tough. It also means they can get virtually all of their nutrition from pasture, and won't have to be fed grain over the winter.

Yet, every year, it seems that winter hits in full fury before I manage to get the last gosling butchered. There are few things as miserable as standing out in the bitter cold, or a November rain, trying to pluck a goose before one's face and fingers go numb. So, every year, a handful of lucky geese have gotten to survive to see another spring.

And that was okay, up to a point. When we'd get a new batch of goslings, in April or May, we had a whole gaggle of adults all set (and eager) to adopt those goslings and raise them for us. It was only necessary to brood them under a heat lamp for a few days. We'd then turn them loose, and stand back as the adults swept in to take over. After several minutes of the most obnoxiously loud honking you've ever heard, the initiation would be complete. The new goslings were full members of the Fraternity of Goose.

Ever watched a pair of wild Canada geese taking care of their goslings? The adults stand guard for predators, chase off any interlopers, and make sure the young go where they're supposed to go. Now, imagine a whole pack of geese doing the same thing, out in our pasture all summer. It's great fun to watch.

Then, this past winter, things got completely out of control. We were up to 15 adults being over-wintered, and they were eating us out of house and home. Something had to be done. But what? We'd read in Carla Emery's classic Encyclopedia of Country Living that it was best to allow a mature goose to live out its life and die of natural causes. They weren't worth butchering, she said, because they were "as tough as shoe leather."

We believed her.

Emery's book is a fantastic resource, but with 15 adult geese that weren't finding any natural causes to die of, I knew I had to come up with some kind of creative solution. And after a bit of research, I found it: brine.

An experiment with one goose confirmed it, and we've been following this method ever since with great success. We didn't even buy a new batch of goslings this spring; this year, all we're going to do is clear out the old ones.

Here's what we do:

1) Butcher the goose as usual. My preferred method is to tie a piece of bailing twine around both legs, suspend the goose upside down from a nail on a beam in the downstairs part of the barn (dirt floor), slit its throat, and let it bleed to death. Once it's dead, I dunk it in a large pot of scalding water to loosen the feathers. I then hang it back up on the nail, and pluck the feathers (stopping from time to time to dunk the bird in hot water again when necessary). The carcass is then transferred to an outdoor table, where I clean and eviscerate it. Lungs get tossed to the barn cats. Heart and liver get set aside to be added to other poultry hearts and livers (for "heart and liver night"). The other internals are tossed, along with the head, tail, and webbed feet.

2) Instead of freezing the carcass whole, as we do with a young one that we intend to roast, I next carve the goose into pieces: wings, legs, thighs, breasts. The breast meat is the only piece I remove from the bone. I don't remove the skin, because it has a nice layer of fat trapped in and under it.

3) The remaining carcass, including the long neck and other stray pieces of meat (especially the back) gets put directly into a large soup pot. After adding a few similar carcasses from meat chickens that'd been butchered earlier in the summer and frozen, we add water and get a pot of soup going.

4) The goose pieces are rinsed and then put directly into a large Crock Pot. I use a quart jar to measure out just enough water to cover all the pieces. Usually it's 3 quarts. I then add one quarter cup of salt to the Crock Pot for each quart of water, and stir everything up until the salt is totally dissolved.

5) The heavy brine will preserve the meat all by itself, because no organisms can grow in that environment. However, just to be sure, I like to put a lid on the Crock Pot and store it in our extra refrigerator. There it sits for at least a couple of days, with the salt and water penetrating deep inside the meat.

6) Early on the morning of the day we intend to feast on the goose, I pour the brine water out of the Crock Pot. It's important not to dump this salt water in a place that will kill vegetation, or into a drain that goes into a septic tank (where it could kill the bacteria that process septic waste). I then add a half cup or so of apple cider vinegar to the Crock Pot, along with an onion and some spices (basil, thyme, rosemary, etc).

7) I put a lid on the Crock Pot, set it on "High", and let it go all day, occasionally stirring the pieces of goose. As it cooks, the fat melts off the meat and makes a wonderful sauce. [ALTERNATIVE: if you're up late the night before, you can start it going overnight on "Low," and turn it down to "Warm" whenever it's clearly done.]

8) At dinner time, I remove the meat, which is by now so tender it's falling off the bone. We arrange the meat on a platter, toss the bones and skin, pour the liquid into a gravy boat, and serve. Any leftover meat and gravy can be added directly into the soup pot (which by now has of course been finished cooking, and has been sitting in the refrigerator, for a day or two.)

We prepared an old gander this way, for yesterday's Sunday dinner, and it was absolutely delicious. This is probably the third or fourth of the old geese I've done so far this Spring / Summer, so there's still a whole bunch more to butcher. We'll most likely over-winter three females, and get a fresh batch of goslings in the spring for them to adopt. At least there's no rush; at this point, they're simply eating grass out in the pasture and not really costing us anything. I just want to make sure I get them done before it gets too cold this fall.

Looks like we'll have lots of good eating between now and then.