Jamie’s Roast Christmas Goose

If you’ve never eaten roast goose before, this is your ultimate chance. It’s an easy recipe and, besides providing a heavenly main course, it will (with a little luck) leave you with enough leftovers for your Christmas leftovers.

How to make Jamie’s roast Christmas goose

1. Bring the meat to room temperature before roasting. Preheat the oven to 180 °C, on the gas oven setting. Peel the ginger, slice it thinly and crush it together with the cinnamon sticks, star anise, cloves and a generous pinch of sea salt and black pepper in a mortar until you have a fairly coarse mixture. Rub it over the skin of the goose halves, place them skin-side up in the largest roasting tray you have and drizzle with some oil. Put the goose in the oven for 3 hours (depending on its size) and baste it every hour with the roasting juices from the tray. After about 2 hours, cut the oranges in half and place them beside the goose.

2. The goose is cooked when the meat comes away from the leg easily. You can now do one of two things. To serve it hot, with crispy skin and wonderfully tender meat, place the pieces on a board, pull the crispy leg meat into flakes and slice the breast fillet. Pour the roasting fat into a jar, let it cool and store it in the refrigerator for another time. Pour a generous splash of vinegar into the roasting tray, scrape the delicious browned bits from the bottom and drizzle them over your meat. Serve with boiled potatoes, vegetables and the usual garnish.

3. The second option is to let the goose cool in the tray and store it in its own fat in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. That way, you only need to reheat it, leaving you more time and oven space on the big day for other things. Preheat the oven to 180 °C on the gas oven setting and put the tray in for about 30 minutes, or until the goose is hot and crispy. Pull, slice and serve it as described above.

Title: Jamie Oliver’s Christmas Cookbook
Author: Jamie Oliver
Publisher: Kosmos Uitgevers
Price: €29,99