192: Roast goose, juniper sauce and apple and lemon puree, p385

New Year's Eve! And the last two recipes! Hurrah! We searched high and low for a goose that wasn't going to bankrupt us and the hubby marvellously managed to find a frozen one in Sainsbury's for a mere £28, on Christmas Eve. Ha! We'd never had goose before, either of us, and ironically found out two days before Christmas that the aunt we were visiting for Christmas Day had decided to roast two geese for lunch this year - so we ended up having it twice in a week! Bizarre. Luckily we both really liked it on Christmas Day - phew.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture until we'd finished eating... whoops... but here's a picture of the carcass :)

It's not really a recipe in the book - no additions other than some salt, but I followed the cooking instructions exactly, and it was perfect. Not dry, not too fatty, crispy on the outside, and I did all of the accompaniments - the onion gravy from the pork leg with added juniper and redcurrant jelly (okay, cranberry sauce, but near enough...), the cabbage with orange and juniper, roast potatoes, and apple and lemon puree. Delicious. If goose wasn't so pricey, I would do this again. Frequently...

Now, on New Year's Day, the carcass has been picked, an enormous pot of stock has been made with the remains, there's a big tub of goose fat saved for future roasties, and I'm going to freeze some of the stock and use the rest to make some restorative noodle soup with the picked goose meat. Yum.

And here are the dinner guests post-goose:

137: Roast leg of pork with onion and Marsala gravy, p383

A friend was round for dinner last night and so I decided I really needed to get a few more recipes under my belt... so a roast dinner it was! Christmas recipes in Nigel's book, but hey ho - it's turning wintery!! Had to pop into the supermarket on my way home to grab a leg of pork - and only boneless available, so I decided since it was a short-notice dinner, boneless it would have to be - inspite of the recipe specifying a leg of pork on the bone. Tough. Sorry :) Delicious crispy skin, but the meat took a bit longer than I thought it would to cook though (pink pork = bad...). The gravy was amazing. Yum yum yum. Onions softened, with a little flour cooked up with them, and then stock and Marsala added. Delicious. Om nom nom.

120: Braised oxtail with mustard and mash, p63

A little visceral, this one...  Hunting down an oxtail, I found one rather quickly in Waitrose, who apparently have a range of 'forgotten cuts' - well done them! A bargain too, under a couple of quid for a whole oxtail. People seem to be incredibly squeamish about the idea though - the number of 'eughs!' and 'yuck, really??' responses I got when I mentioned I was making this, you'd have thought I was cooking a rat. Stupidly anticipating an oxtail to be long thick lump of meat, at the meat counter I was momentarily taken aback by the fact that the 'oxtail' sign was sitting on a little pile of neat, medallion-like rounds, before realising that they were all different sizes, about 1/2 inch through to 3 inches in diameter - and are of course each of the vertebrae of the tail, already chopped apart and ready to cook... doh!

An easy stew to throw together, and with the addition of a whole bottle of wine (no stock!) and the mustards, really meaty and rich and scrummy. After 2 1/2 hours, the meat was falling off the bones, and the next day, as per the recipe, I finished it off and served it with creamy mashed potato. The meat was lovely, but a little thin on the ground, and a little slimy still for T's liking, so maybe a bit longer in the oven to reduce the collagen down a bit more might have been a good idea.