of geese who aren’t geese, a par­ty, and a farce

It’s one of the most per­plex­ing ques­tions to char­ac­ter­ize my hol­i­day sea­son so far.  When is a goose not a goose?  Why, when it’s a calf, of course.

I was con­fused too, believe me.

Cooks — at least those who cook every day — can get in ruts.  At least I can.  Well, John would say they’re not so much ruts as they are flights of obses­sion, which means I cook the same thing over and over, try­ing to get it just right, or try­ing vari­a­tions on the same theme.  Many dish­es have fol­lowed this same route: slow-braised chick­en with root veg­eta­bles, home­made piz­za, things deep-fried, bean sal­ad.  When I look through my beloved recipe index here, I see with embar­rass­ment that there are MANY ver­sions of ideas, as I exper­i­ment.  Cheesy spinach, the per­fect red pep­per soup, the per­fect brandy and sour cream sauce for chick­en or salmon.  All of these ideas have set up camp in my kitchen, for my long-suf­fer­ing fam­i­ly to eat their way through, night after night.

So when last week I came upon an ingre­di­ent I’d nev­er heard of, I knew it was time to try some­thing new.  “Goose skirt!” I said to the butch­er boy behind the meat counter in Wait­rose.  I turned to John, who said, “I’ve nev­er heard of it either,” and since it was­n’t expen­sive, I said I’d take two of the vac­u­um-packed meat and roast it at home, so much sim­pler than a whole goose.

“I don’t think I’ve ever cooked goose of any kind,” I made con­ver­sa­tion with the butch­er boy as he wrapped and weighed.  And very casu­al­ly he said, “This isn’t goose, you know.  It’s veal.”  VEAL?  “You’re telling me that some­thing called “goose skirt” is cow meat.”  “That’s right.”

Well, you’ll find if you google it that there are very few men­tions of goose skirt, and those there are only tell you to grill it, to treat it in fact like what in Amer­i­ca is called “skirt steak” or a very sim­i­lar cut, “flank steak.”  All the recipes I could find to use this cheap and tough cut indi­cat­ed mar­i­nat­ing and grilling.  Not very blog­wor­thy, and not afford­ing many chances to get obsessed with pos­si­ble vari­a­tions.  So I decid­ed to take a risk.

Slow-brais­ing is the per­fect win­try way to treat meat.  We’re all feel­ing a bit poor, so it’s nice to hon­or the cheap cuts of meat that can be tough if treat­ed the wrong way.

Slow-brais­ing cooks itself, fills the house with savory and wel­com­ing aro­mas, and the left­over sauce is per­fect with pas­ta the next day.  I’ve been slow-brais­ing shoul­der of beef - a bit obses­sive­ly per­haps — and thought, let’s try it with a goose skirt.  And the result was spec­tac­u­lar.  Unfor­tu­nate­ly it was­n’t pret­ty, so there is no pho­to.  But rich, deeply fla­vored and satisfying.

Slow-Braised Goose Skirt With Stout and Mushrooms

(serves four with leftovers)

1 kilo (about 2.2 pounds) goose skirt

juice of 1 lemon

2 tbsps olive oil

sea salt and pepper

1 pound chest­nut mush­rooms, sliced thick

4 cloves gar­lic, minced

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

1 white onion, cut in eighths

1 cup stout

enough beef stock just to cov­er the meat

2 tbsps flour

1 cup sour cream

chives to garnish

At least 12 hours before you want to eat, put the meat in a shal­low dish and rub all over with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pep­per.  Cov­er with cling film and refrig­er­ate, up to three days.

About 4 hours before you want to eat, take the meat from the refrig­er­a­tor and cut into large pieces, about 2 inch­es across.  Pour the mar­i­nat­ing juices and oil into a heavy-bot­tomed saucepan and heat till very hot, then throw in the mush­rooms, gar­lic, thyme and onion.  Add more oil if nec­es­sary and brown the veg­eta­bles.  Remove from pan and replace with the meat.  Brown the meat all over, then throw the veg­eta­bles back in, and cov­er with stout and stock.  Cov­er tight­ly and turn heat down VERY low, then cook for about 4 hours, stir­ring occasionally.

Just before you want to eat, pour a lit­tle of the cook­ing sauce into a bowl and add the flour, whisk­ing it till smooth.  Add this mix­ture to the cook­ing pan and whisk nice­ly.  Then add the sour cream, stir well, and heat up again.  Serve with the chives as garnish.

This dish was GOR­GEOUS!  Very much like my slow-braised shoul­der, and just as inexpensive.

What I have not been able to dis­cov­er is why on earth VEAL should be called GOOSE.  No one seems to know!  And I love things like that: small food mys­ter­ies lurk­ing from the mists of time.

For­ti­fied by this pro­tein-laden, dark­ly deli­cious dish, I was able to throw myself into fes­tive preparations.

Avery has been long­ing, for sev­er­al years, to have a prop­er Christ­mas par­ty.  With Christ­mas crack­ers, and fes­tive foods, and the dec­o­ra­tions up around the house, and her guests all dressed to the nines.  And this year was the year.  She invit­ed just the right group, we went shop­ping for table dec­o­ra­tions, and I asked if she’d like to order piz­zas as she had for her “mock­tails” par­ty last spring.  “No, I have a menu in mind,” she said.  “If it’s not too expen­sive, let’s have steaks, and Orlan­do pota­toes, and green beans.  And then for dessert, hot chocolate.”

And so it was.  I enjoyed myself so much, put­ter­ing around for her, while she strug­gled with Russ­ian, maths, Reli­gious Stud­ies and Latin, threw her­self into prac­tice for her Singing Tea.  I dec­o­rat­ed the table with things that cost almost noth­ing: pinecones, red can­dles at £1 apiece, nap­kins with rein­deer on them, and a pack­et of lit­tle glit­tery glass pieces to scat­ter across the table.  How lucky our dai­ly din­ner plates are green Firek­ing, per­fect with all the red.

The girls arrived, dressed to the nines in every out­landish gar­ment you can imag­ine and heels?  Tot­ter­ing, my dears!  Fur hats, trail­ing scarves, lots of beau­ti­ful make­up, all exam­ined by each girl in the minut­est detail.  There were shrieks of excite­ment, bursts of song, and the most grat­i­fy­ing hugs from her friends.  And pulling of Christ­mas crackers!

We went into action, John grilling the steaks and me fry­ing the match­stick pota­to pan­cakes in goose fat, sim­ply heav­en­ly.  Thank you, Orlan­do, for this best of all pota­to recipes.

Orlan­do Pota­toes in Goose Fat

(serves 6 hun­gry teenagers)

1 medi­um-ish pota­to per girl

3 small shallots

sea salt and fresh pepper

3 tbsps goose fat

Slice each pota­to very thin length­wise, then turn the oth­er way and slice very thin across, to make tiny match­sticks.  Lay the pota­toes on a thick tea tow­el and squeeze and roll in the tow­el until you’ve wrung as much water from the pota­toes as pos­si­ble.  Place in a large bowl.

Mince the shal­lots very small and mix with the pota­toes.  Salt and pep­per the mix­ture.  Form into six cakes.

Heat the goose fat in a very large fry­ing pan.  When a tiny bit of pota­to dropped in the fat siz­zles right away, it’s ready.  Put the cakes in as quick­ly as you can and fry on one side for 2–3 min­utes, then turn.  If they fall apart slight­ly when turn­ing, just push the ragged bits back toward each cake and press a bit.  Cook for anoth­er 2–3 min­utes on the oth­er side, until gold­en brown.  Turn again if you’re not sat­is­fied.  Serve HOT.

I wish I had a pho­to of these pota­toes but hon­est­ly, the girls were prac­ti­cal­ly chew­ing each oth­er’s arms off, so we put a steak and a pota­to cake on each plate and every­one sat down to choose whether they want­ed Bear­naise Sauce or Sauce Diane, and helped them­selves to gor­geous green beans, sim­ply steamed and tossed in melt­ed but­ter and Fox Point Sea­son­ing.

It was so sat­is­fy­ing!  They ate like lit­tle wolves, not a scrap remain­ing on the plates, and gos­sip­ing, singing and light­ing the tiny sparklers.  They were… hap­py.  And, so were we.  In this world where we can con­trol so lit­tle of our chil­dren’s hap­pi­ness, to give an evening like that to them, safe and fun, was an enor­mous gift.

As soon as they were set­tled down, John and I pro­duced our own din­ner!  Have to take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to eat some­thing Avery does­n’t like.  Roast­ed fen­nel, hot pep­pers and beets, tossed in chilli oil.  And our all-time favorite scal­lop dish.  You can’t have too much gar­lic, after all.

Scal­lops with Gar­lic, Pars­ley and Linguini

(serves 2)

lin­gui­ni for 2

16 large scallops

2/3 cup olive oil

6 cloves garlic

1 whole bunch flat-leaf pars­ley, chopped fine

2/3 cup bread­crumbs, toasted

sea salt and pep­per to taste

Put the lin­gui­ni on to cook.  Mean­while, heat the olive oil in a wok until real­ly hot, then throw in the scal­lops, gar­lic and pars­ley.  Cook for about 2 min­utes until scal­lops are done, but not tough.  Turn the heat off.

Drain the pas­ta and throw it in the olive oil and scal­lops and turn the heat up high till bub­bling.  QUICK­LY add the bread­crumbs and take off heat, toss­ing thor­ough­ly.  Salt and pep­per to taste.  Sprin­kle over hot dried chilli flakes if you like.

After cups of hot choco­late with every top­ping known to man — marsh­mal­lows, crushed can­dy canes, crushed bis­cuits and choco­late sauce — the girls repaired to the liv­ing room where the Christ­mas tree glit­tered, and watched a movie.  John had blown up air mat­tress­es for them and they set­tled right down.  A hap­py evening.

We spent Sat­ur­day chauf­feur­ing Avery and her friend to Sam­ba, then Avery to act­ing, then we rushed home and got ready for a tru­ly side-split­ting play, “A Flea in Her Ear” at the Old Vic.  I’ve nev­er seen a French farce before!  It had every­thing: maids in white ruf­fled aprons, mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty, a char­ac­ter with a speech imped­i­ment, a love affair gone wrong, a mis­un­der­stood let­ter!  You MUST see it.

Avery was agog with amaze­ment at the sheer over-the-top nut­ti­ness!  Some gems of lines: “You’re as bad as Oth­el­lo with that old hand­ker­chief!” delight­ed her because they’re study­ing Oth­el­lo in Eng­lish!  The char­ac­ter with the speech imped­i­ment los­es his sil­ver palate expander behind, and it’s returned to him.

“How did you know where to find me?” he asks in astonishment.

“Your name and address are engraved inside.  Why both­er with call­ing cards when you can just leave the roof of your mouth behind?”

We haven’t laughed so hard in an age.  A stel­lar cast of peo­ple we’ve seen on Spooks, onstage in sev­er­al pro­duc­tions, in films.  Go, do!  It was the per­fect play to see on a night when, post-par­ty, we were all too tired to pay atten­tion to any­thing serious.

Well, din­ner prep beck­ons.  I can’t cook some­thing new every night, it would­n’t be very com­fort­ing.  So it’s fried had­dock and stuffed red pep­pers, two old stand­bys.  We can use a lit­tle stand­by and a lit­tle exper­i­ment, with a great par­ty tossed in, now and then.