Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Anybody got a GOOSE recipe?

Can't quite figure this one out. Only breasted out the birds, except for one that we did legs/thighs. It's almost like you want to cook it like beef, due to it's texture and flavor, but it requires such a high internal temp (160) that you cant.

Roasting and braising dry the heck out of it, but work well with venison. I've been tempted to try the crock pot, but would have to eat crow first as I hate the thing....

Oh, and the misses said that the #1 shot she found last night didn't add any flavor either, whoops.....

Why 160 degrees?

According to USDA, anyway. I like stuff rare, but I don't think birds is one of them.....

Actually, USDA says 180. I think they are on crack...

I made jerky from mine.

Jerky? hadn't even thought about that one.........

Slice the breast, use your favorite seasoning, hard pressed to tell it from venison.

+1 on the jerky. In my experience it needs less salt.Just my .02 worth.VMMV.

Chris C is right. I've had the best luck steaking it out and frying, like venison. And yes, tastes like venison to me.

Assuming goose is like other fowl. USDA says 180, but 165 is fine.

Aint never hunted goose. No desire. Hell I could walk outta my apt most days and kill one with a head shot from a pellet gun. Resident Canada Goose population is huge here. Just hearsay, but I'm told they can be very greasy if not prepared right.

16bore,

The USDA is very fond of ALWAYS suggesting far more heat for wild game than necessary, just so anybody who gets sick for whatever reason (such as eating at McDonald's the same day)doesn't sue them.

Goose cooked medium-rare is very good stuff. My wife wrote the duck and goose cookbook for Ducks Unlimited and it has several rare-roast recipes (along with a wide variety of other recipes). Neither of us has ever had the slightest ill-effect in decades of eating rare waterfowl--including the several months we ate a LOT of waterfowl while she was developing the recipes and photographing the book.

It sounds like you are looking for one instant solution for goose, but if you'd like more variety you might look at our website, www.riflesandrecipes.com.

I would also seriously be thinking about sliceing, pounding it out, breading and chicken frying like the Southern boys would.

Treat as lean beef. I have eaten dozens of them med rare and have yet to get sick.

The key with any red fleshed game bird is not to treat it as poultry. I only eat the breasts rest gets boiled up for the dogs. The breasts get cooked like beef. Of course a little extra prep is needed. My favorite way to cook ducks and geese is to cut the breast into strips the long way about 1/2" thick. Then I poke the strips with a fork several times. Work your way up and down the the strip a couple times poking a line of holes.

Next marinate. Can of coke couple tablespoons soy sauce four or five cloves of garlic crushed and some black pepper. Marinate for at least four or five hours to over night. Ducks don't need as long as geese. Once they marinate drain them and dry thoroughly. Thread couple strips onto skewers. Grill them over a very hot grill preferable natural lump charcoal. Don't cook too long couple three minutes a side at most. DO NOT cook past medium med rare is better. You only need to turn them once. If you like you can brush them with a teriayke sauce as they come off the grill. Everyone that has tried these thinks they are beef or maybe venison.

Another great recipe is to freeze the breasts. Don't freeze solid just want them kind of icy and firm. Use a sharp knife cut very thin slices across the grain. Marinate for about an hour in half a cup of soy tablespoon sesame oil couple cloves chopped garlic black pepper. You can use the slices a couple ways. Use as you would use beef in a stir fry or any chinese type beef dish such as beef and broccoli. Cook hot and fast. Next thing to do with same meat is again cook hot and fast. Then get some flat breads or pitas. Makes a great sandwich. Top with whatever you like. You can also do a marinade of olive oil garlic and Greek spices and come up with a damn good gyro.

Kind of an odd one is to do schnitzel. Use duck or goose instead of veal. Pound the breasts down to about a quarter to of an inch working the edges out so you end up with a decent sized cutlet. Dust in flour then into milk and egg then bread crumbs. Fry fast in butter. Serve with some spaetzles a bit of red cabbage excellent meal.

Final thing is fajitas. Again very thin slices. I usually just marinate in a bit of oil with any packaged fajita seasoning and a bit of lime.

Really you can do most anything. Just treat as beef. Marinating and hot fast cooking and not over cooking are the keys. Cooking technique will do more for ducks and geese than the seasonings you choose.

I read somewhere that roasting a large one could yield a quart of fat..



I like a lot of variety. This is our first year goose hunting and really want the cooking to be a "winner". We don't shoot what we don't eat, and goose hunting is going to stretch out the season!!




Mother-In-Law did this and it was awful. Overcooked it though...

mike7mm08, ya got me thinking now. Gyro's would be dynamite.


I've done duck skewers with a peanut sauce and it was excellent. The goose seems to have a slight liver taste and it may be from overcooking. We actually like the taste, almost like foie gras..

My fav is a nice roasted goose but corned goose breast is awesome too.

Here is an easy one that makes most non hunting folks stop and ask for more.

Strip out the breast in about 8 slices the long way with the grain. A slicer helps but a knife is fine.
Skewer the slices with soaked bamboo skewers. Soak the whole lot of them in Teriaki overnight.
Grill these on a med hot fire. I like them on the rare side but med is fine as well.
Not many who try one dont ask for more.
Goose candy.

Take the legs and make a gumbo. Awesome.

Bob

Enjoy.

Liver taste is from over cooking. Cooked med rare goose will taste like full flavored beef or mild venison.

I'm wanting to try goose now after reading this. Is there one type of goose better than another? Canada, Snow, etc? Also, because of the resident population here, we have an early goose season, but they're all "city geese". Does their diet have an effect on the fat, or meat?

I have not tried snow geese. But just like canadians people seem to love them or hate them. So I am sure you either like goose or you don't as nearly all the same people that don't like snows don't like canadians. I would not hesitate eating city geese as they will fly a ways to get food. Not like they are eating trash. I have eaten canadians shot from various food sources and I have yet to notice a difference in taste. As for the fat I always trim all the fat off wild game. Seems if they are is going to be any off taste it will be in the fat.

A lot of people claim white-fronted geese (specklebellies) taste the best of any, and while they're good I don't see that much difference, and I've eaten a lot of snows and Canadas.

Young-of-the-yeart birds are tenderer, but geese benefit from the same "aging" process as any meat. We typically leave them in the refrigerator or, if the weather's cool enough, the garage for a few days. This definitely helps, along with not over-cooking if roasting or frying. If cooked by slow/moist methods even an old goose will be plenty tender and moist.

Wild geese don't typically have nearly as much fat as domestic geese. My wife just cooked a lesser Canada a couple of days in an oven bag, and it may have lost an ounce of melted fat. Anybody claiming a quart of fat melts off a goose is thinking of domestic geese. Personally, I like the little bit of fat on wild geese--as long as they haven't been in the freezer very long. Any off-taste is accentuated by long freezing.

Thanks, good info!