Today is St. Martin’s day and in Köln children are looking forward to this evening when they’ll walk down the streets, lanterns held high as they form part of a procession held annually in remembrance of St Martin of Tours. He was an ordinary, humble Roman soldier who gained notoriety when he tore his cloak in half to share it with a beggar in a snowstorm and was horrified when the church wanted to honour his many good deeds by electing him bishop. He hid in  a stable full of geese when church officials came looking for him one day and because the geese made a terrible noise that gave him away, he became 

a bishop, after all. To celebrate his life, each family eats a goose is each year – which is why the day has turned into an annual culinary highlight and a considerable decrease in the goose population.

Ingredients

• 1 x 5 kg goose, oven ready with giblets cleaned and separate
• 450g prunes, pitted
• 1kg fresh chestnuts
• 250 ml port/brandy mixed
• 30g butter
• 1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 6 stalks celery, chopped
• 4 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 cup fine breadcrumbs
• Malden salt and freshly ground pepper

Method

Prepare Stuffing

• Soak the prunes in the port/brandy mixture for about 2 hours;
• Make a slit in the top of each chestnut with a very sharp knife and then put them in boiling water to simmer for fifteen minutes;
• Remove a few at a time with a slotted spoon and then peel off the outer and inner skins.
• Put them in a large bowl and once you have sautéed the onions, garlic and celery in the butter add this to the chestnuts together with the prunes and the brandy/port mixture in which they have been soaking for the past two hours.
• Add the breadcrumbs and mix everything well into a paste.
• Finally add the parsley, check and correct seasoning.

Roast

• Stuff the goose with the prune and chestnut stuffing.
• Always remember that you don’t need a stuffing, if you dislike stuffing, cook it as is or put an orange spiked with cloves in the cavity or an apple – use your own imagination.
• I have, on occasion, filled the cavity with lightly boiled dried fruit mixed with allspice and loads of cardamom but it’s really pretty much up to you.

Preheat the oven to 200C

• Prick the skin with a sharp skewer or in the alternative, get a very sharp, pointy knife, sit down and prick tiny (very tiny) little slits  into the skin, just breaking it -this allows the fat, of which there is an abundance, to escape.
• Rub well with salt and pepper and then brush with the oil.
• Cover the legs with spare fat taken from the inside of the goose. (Yes, really).
• Line a large, deep oven dish with foil so that you can make a parcel with the goose inside.
• Put the goose on a rack in the oven dish, breast side up.
• If you don’t have a rack, just put the goose on the foil in the dish.
• Wrap the goose in foil, making sure there is double protection over the legs and put the dish in the oven, allowing 15 minutes per 450 g plus 20 minutes extra.
• After the first hour start to baste the goose but make sure the legs are well covered and that the skin is not burning.
• During the final 30 – 45 minutes of cooking, uncover the breast to brown and baste continuously.
• It is at this point that you move into the kitchen and start to keep an eye on your goose.
• Allow to rest for 20 minutes before carving.

In Köln it’s served with red cabbage and dumplings. I suggest you skip the dumplings because the goose is terribly rich and boil a few baby potatoes instead or roast a few yellow peaches to cut the richness. A good mellow red wine is just the thing for this goose!