Steikt gæs

Roasted goose

In Iceland you don't necessarily eat geese at Christmas, but rather in the fall when hunters shoot the animals during the season. Usually only pink-footed geese and greylag geese breed in Iceland, other species of geese are regularly only in transit here in spring and autumn and there are strict regulations as to which animals you can hunt, whether you can hunt them at all and when the closed seasons are.

The most popular type of geese in Iceland are wild geese (greylag geese), as their meat is particularly aromatic.


Ingredients

1 goose
salt and pepper

350 g minced meat
20 g dried wild mushrooms
1 tsp birch smoke salt
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp meat broth extract
2 hot dog buns


Preparation

Soak the dried mushrooms in cold water for about an hour. Then let it drain.

Fry the minced meat with the mushrooms and smoked salt in a large pan.


Cut the hot dog buns into small pieces and add them to the pan with the brown sugar and the meat broth extract and simmer for a few minutes.

Rub the goose with salt and pepper.

Then pour the filling into the goose and press it together as tightly as possible, but make sure that there is still some air left, as the filling will increase in volume a little while roasting.

Then close the opening with metal skewers or toothpicks.

Preheat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C) upper/lower heat.

Put the stuffed goose in a suitable dish in the oven and roast for 15 minutes at 400 °F (200 °C).

Turn the oven down to 275 °F (140 °C) upper and lower heat and bake for another 90 minutes.

Then sprinkle the goose with a teaspoon of brown sugar to make the skin crispy and then bake for another 10 minutes.

Our Christmas dinner - roast goose with red cabbage

[Translated from here.]