Almost an adventure

[redbird]

Thanksgiving dinner was more complicated and stressful than we had hoped, but in the end the three of us got a good meal on the table, and ate it. I realized somewhere in there that I had coped as well as I did in part because it was just me, adrian_turtle, and cattitude. So there wasn't a layer of "will they think I'm not a good cook/host" worry, which might have been hard to squelch even with a friend who I rationally knew wasn't judging any of us.

Basically, we decided to try a goose instead of a turkey (with three, we don't need a huge bird), and the fat spattered and smoked, but we did get a roast bird, and our usual side dishes, and it was good. No apple crisp, though: we didn't want to restart the oven without cleaning it, and we couldn't clean it until it cooled. So there is a "Bad oven! No biscuit!" sign on the oven door, and we had chocolate for dessert. The stuffing came out very nicely cooked inside a goose, but we are going to go back to a turkey next year. Maybe I'll try this version in a duck sometime (it's a rice-based stuffing, and at Adrian's suggestion I used sunflower seeds instead of the pine nuts the recipe calls for).

It wasn't our bird that set off the building fire alarms, it was someone downstairs's turkey. He told us this when we were partway down the stairs, along with "I'm trying to tell the firefighters it's okay now," so we went back up, and Adrian went down the hall to pass this information to a couple of the neighbors on her floor. (I don't think our bird was less smoky--we had disconnected the fire alarm when we decided to keep cooking despite the smoky oven.) I was pleased to notice that the bit of hurrying down and walking (more calmly) back up didn't bother my knees at all.

Comments

[necturus]

What does goose taste like? I have never tried it, but always imagined it would be more like duck than chicken or turkey.

[adrian_turtle]

Indeed, it is more like duck than chicken or turkey. I found it even darker and richer than duck. It was good, but not even close to being worth the trouble or expense. Goose costs about twice as much per pound as premium turkey, and much more of the bird is bone.

This particular goose came out tougher than I expected--on the edge of needing a steak knife at the table. You can braise a tough chicken, but geese are so fat they demand to be roasted. (So the fat will drip off the bird and you can scoop it out of the roasting pan and use it to fry potatoes or something. Rather than trying to braise in half broth and half fat.)

[jesse_the_k]

Glad you had a tasty bird.

I firmly believe that It wasn't our bird that set off the building fire alarms, it was someone downstairs's turkey belongs in a country-western song.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You need a pan with a lid. And you need to do it at 180.

But I'm glad it was good.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

My sympathies. We don't have a working vent over our stove, so I generally set off the smoke alarm when I cook a burger. (Yes, I realize this is a reflection on my technique.)