Hollyhock Farm

September 14, 2022/Hollyhock Farm

Fall greetings to you!

As some of you may know, we raise geese on our farm for meat. I have tried for the last few years to roast the perfect goose, because I find that I am very attracted to goose as a poultry option for our family’s pasture raised meat needs. Geese can put on a lot of weight through grazing alone. I like the idea of goose as a special meal meat for our family, however roasting a goose to tender perfection was not happening for me despite trying many different approaches, including grain feeding my goose. My usual results were more tough and rubbery than anything else. My advice is to ignore anyone who tells you that you can roast a goose in one hour. Or four hours. I want to report that I have successfully roasted a 14lb goose from our farm on two different occasions now to my satisfaction! As with all the meats from our farm, a roasted goose needs a long, low, and slow cooking. I put my goose into the oven at bed time the evening before I want to eat it in a tightly wrapped tin-foil tent and leave it in the oven at 200 degrees overnight, and then the next morning I reset my oven and keep it at 200 degrees until the goose has been in the oven for 15 hours. Yup – 15 or more hours folks. If I had a crock pot big enough I would use that, but as it is I use my oven. When I was a kid my grandma had an electric turkey roaster. Maybe I need to seek one out for our family. Anyway, we had this preparation just the other day, and it was delicious. Really delicious in fact. Here is my apple stuffed goose recipe to go with this lovely fall season. This is traditional faire for Saint Michael’s day!

Roast Goose with Sour Cream and Apple Stuffing

3 onions

4 apples

5 Tbsp butter

Goose giblets, minced

6 cups small bread cubes from a French loaf, fresh or stale

1 Tbsp vinegar

3 Tsp (or more..) dried sage

A pinch or two of red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper

1 cup sour cream

1 12-16 lb goose, room temperature

To make the stuffing, finely chop the onions and apples. You may want to use a food processor. Sautee the onions, apples, and giblets in a pot with the butter. Once onions are translucent, remove the pot from the stove and add in the bread cubes, vinegar, sage, red pepper flakes, and sour cream. Season with salt and pepper.

To make the goose: preheat the oven to 200. Trim fat from the vent of the cavity. Tuck the wings behind the back of the goose. Salt the inside and outside of the goose. Spoon in the stuffing mixture- if your goose if smaller you may not be able to fit it all, pack it in as much as you can. Place the goose on a good roasting rack that can hold a decent amount of liquid. The goose will give off a LOT of fat. Ours gave a full half gallon. That is a good thing. Wrap the entire goose and roasting pan with tin foil – seal it so that steam is contained. Leave in the oven at 200 for 15-16 hours – or more. Check it at 15 hours and see if the meat is falling of the bone. When done, remove from the oven and allow to rest. Remove the foil and take all the meat off the bones. Scoop out the stuffing into a serving dish. We like serving the stuffing with sour cream, and the goose as it is. To get more out of your goose, save the fat to fry potatoes in. Yum. Also save the bones to make a good broth for soup. Yum again.

Back to farm news: We have turkeys for sale now in our weekend farm shop! Come get your holiday turkey before they sell out! We’ll have one more turkey processing this coming weekend (9/17 and 9/18) – anyone who would like a fresh, never frozen turkey should come out this weekend! After this they will all be frozen. Turkey weights are between 13 and 20lbs, and we sell them for $9/lb.

We’ll be processing our crop of geese coming up at the beginning of November. I will post an update the week before our processing day, and geese can be purchased fresh, never frozen on the weekend of processing or frozen thereafter until they sell out. We will have 5 available and sell them for $9/lb. Whole goose is usually around 15lbs.

Current shop offerings:

Garlic: $5/box

Onions: $3/box

Tomatoes – cherry tomatoes: $4/pint

Salad mix: $5/bag

Carrots: $4/bunch

Radish – red globe: $3/bunch

Eggs: $8/dozen

Chard: $3/bunch

Collard greens: $3/bunch

Rooster, frozen whole: $20/ea

Turkey, frozen whole: $9/lb (between 13 and 20 lbs)