While the expression "Your goose is cooked," suggests danger and vexation, I rather think a cooked goose is an object to be revered: the centerpiece of a grandiose feast waiting to be devoured by famished Cratchits on Christmas, or bejewelled dames and mutton-chopped gentlemen. The image instantly conjured is of course a whole roast goose, carved into wide slabs and drenched in gravy: denser, darker and richer than turkey, and more primaevally beasty. But how to cook a goose without the breast becoming dry and leathery? How to prevent the prodigious amounts of fat from flaring up in the roasting pan? A slow roast on a spit would be ideal. But I had other plans.

Spotting a goose on sale in the supermarket for 8 dollars (and with my initial suspicion over the price smothered by innate hunger and curiosity) I decided to spend a day playing around. If duck is so amenable to disassembly and curing, why not its larger cousin, Anser domesticus? I could cure the legs and breast, make paté from the organs, stock from the bones, render the fat for cooking. Even cracklings from the skin. Not a single iota of this noble bird would go to waste. Should you be so inclined to spend an afternoon such as I enjoyed, here is the procedure and the rewards you will reap.

Start with a goose. Mine was domestic, defrosted and of medium frame. 12 Pounds. With a sharp boning knife, remove the legs and thighs (still attached) and then the breasts with the skin and set aside. Cut or scrape any remaining flesh from the bones and set this aside too, along with the giblets. That would be the liver, heart, gizzard, and other assorted guts. Remove and set aside all remaining skin and fat in a cast iron skillet.

Put all the bones in a big stockpot with onions, carrots, celery and a few juniper berries, a few sprigs of thyme and a bay leaf, and boil gently for about 4 or 5 hours while you are processing the rest of the goose. Strain, and continue to reduce very gently for another hour or until thick and rich. Salt to taste, and then put this in the fridge where it will solidify into a lovely gelatinous goose demi-glaze aspic. If you'd like to serve all the goose parts together, freeze this in an ice cube tray as the other preparations will take a week or so.   

Render at the lowest possible heat all the fat and skin. This will take more than an hour. Drain off the fat through a cheesecloth lined sieve and save in a glass jar in the fridge. Keep cooking the remaining skin until crunchy. Season with salt and pepper. In Yiddish these are called gribenes, better than pork rinds. Don't eat them all yet. Save some in an airtight container.

At the same time take the legs and season well with salt and pepper and thyme and just the barest pinch of pink salt or sodium nitrite (instacure #1). Do the same with the breasts. Put these in ziplock bags and store in the fridge for at least one week.

Lastly take all the guts, especially the liver, and other bits of meat and sautee them in goose fat with a few shallots finely minced. Remove from the pan and deglaze with bourbon. Chop everything very finely adding a little more goose fat and salt and pepper to taste. This is your paté, which can also be frozen, if you want to serve everything together.

After a week of curing in the fridge, take the breasts and lightly cold smoke them over a sweet wood like apple or cherry (I used grape vine cuttings) for about 15 minutes, cranking up the heat at the end just to cook very slightly for a few minutes. We offer simple smoking instructions in The Lost Art of Real Cooking. If you don't have a smoker, light a little fire of wood in a portable grill, put in the goose breast and then cover with the grill top. The flames should go out completely, just leaving heavy smoke. It will remain pink however long you cook it, but resist the urge to cook thoroughly or it will be dry. Let cool and slice each breast thinly. This is really goose ham.

You can serve these dishes however you like: as a range of starters or a whole goose platter, all at room temperature. Keep intact every separate part so you have a few neat slices of smoked breast, a few pieces of leg perhaps torn into coarse chunks, a few squares of goose stock aspic, a thick slice of rough goose paté, and a few cracklings for garnish. If you like, make some croutons fried in the remaining fat. Add whatever you like for contrast, maybe arugula, a dab of mustard, home-cured cornichons or a few capers. Trust me, your goose will be cooked. 

Were this all not enough, the next week there was another goose, just like the first, for sale at the same incredible price. So I bought another, to have even more fun. I decided to remove the entire breast, both lobes together, with skin intact, cure as above, but this time folding the two lobes together and binding them in a kind of goose coppa, cured for a week in the fridge like above and smoked over sassafras root. I also boned one of the legs, removed the meat, and chopped it finely with everything else I could remove from the carcass, added salt and maple sugar, plus the cure, and stuffed it back into the leg skin. Sewed it up and after a week smoked it too. A goose leg sausage.

So do you think I'm sick of goose yet? Don't bet on it.

Sliced cured and smoked goose breast ham was a specialty of medieval Jews who could not eat pork.

Clear rendered fat. Fry potatoes in this or chill and spread on toast.

Goose skin cracklings and fat rendered slowly in a cast iron pan.  

Goose leg sausage sliced. Serve with mustard and sauerkraut.

An assortment of smoked goose: breast coppa, leg, stuffed leg and neck (for flavoring soup or a pot of beans).

Goose liver pate.