Roasted Goose for Christmas Dinner

[Cottage Rose]

Quote:
Three cheers for you and your philosophy!

It makes me cry when a see a semi truck packed to the gills with chickens all squashed together.
The reality of the meat we buy in the grocery store is very sad.
Never the less I have a hard time processing our own waterfowl since they are much more personable than chickens but at least I treat my animals humanely and their life here is far superior to how most animals are kept.

 

[scooter147]

Sliced goose breast and dijon mustard, HMMM HMMM GOOD.

 

[ultasol]

Cottagerose- I can completely understand! It is really hard for me with the geese- really hard. My flock isn't huge so each one seems very individual to me... however, I had a gander heavy hatch this past year.

If only they would lay only geese with no DQ's, I would be all set!

 

[jaku]

I can't get past how the wings look on dressed geese. Looks too much like an alien or a praying mantis.

 

[protodon]

Quote:
I thought the same thing after looking at the picture a second ago. I've never butchered a goose and I don't know what most people do, but with birds I generally remove that part of the wing since it is usually just skin and bone and the cooked bird looks better without it.

 

[ultasol]

Actually, I did end up removing that part of the wing before the guests arrived. I completely forgot about it until then. Oops.

Much less mantis like without that last part of the wing

 

[Hozer]

Quote:
I dry plucked 2 ducks recently. My neighbor gave them to me and I fattened them up on scratch and left over popcorn. I talked the neighbor into taking one of my Ameraucana roosters at the same time. I told my Chinese wife I traded one rooster for 2 ducks. She thought I was a genius. I didn't tell her I was getting the ducks anyway. Earlier she told me to quit giving my roosters away. My wife is very thrifty and she thinks it is a big waste to feed a rooster until it is grown and then give it away. I didn't try to explain to her I was stashing them in case I lose my rooster. They also have no remorse about kiling something for food. It is an everyday thing over there. Her mother will come up the steps with a chicken in a bamboo basket in each hand and later you are eating chicken. They are not as removed from it like most Americans. I just feel it is more honest to occasionally kill what I eat.

Anyhow, back to the ducks. I thought it was going to be a chore, but first I plucked all the big feathers while they were still warm and what was left was all the down. It looked kinda like a penguin. Then I plucked the down and it came out easily. If you were going to save the down...this is the trick. If you try to pluck the hard feathers and the down together, it is much harder to do and tears the skin. It worked really slick and the down kept the bird warm until you are done. Finally I singed off the hair feathers and what down I could not get. My Eskimo neighbor says this is how they do it traditionally. He also told me of a friend of his that had a swan skin parka made by his mother. He and his friends would be chilly and the one with the swan parka would be sweating.

My wife was thrilled with the duck's thick yellow fat layer from being corn fed. It was very good in stir fry. The other one we will roast. I am angling for raising more next summer. At $25.00 a duckling at the store, it's worth it.

Another trick we used to do when I was a kid is put paraffin in the dunking water. Tear off the cooled parffin...feathers and all...like bikini waxing...the scene from 40 Year Old Virgin comes to mind.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Sorry.. posted in the wrong one...

 

[redhen]

Can someone show me what goose meat looks like? Is it dark meat?

 

[fowlmood]

Thanks ultasol, maybe increasing the water temp will help next time. By the way, I agree completely with your thoughts on butchering your own. I take pride in raising and processing our own food, meat and plant alike. There's a certain satisfaction of knowing the living conditions and appreciating the work that goes in to getting food. I admit, I do go to the grocery store, but as my daughter said about the deer she shot, it just tastes better if you shoot it yourself. Even the veggies in the garden have so much more flavor than those from the store.....probably all the manure! My mom did try one of those Turduckhen things this year at Christmas. Anybody ever make one of those? There was a LOT of meat on that dinner table.