A Sherlock Holmes Christmas Goose

Phew, we made it through 2021! On this final day of the year I have one last holiday post, and it’s a good one. Today I am making a Sherlock Holmes inspired Christmas goose! I realize that I haven’t quite made it through the 12 Days of Christmas, as I intended. Between the craziness of the holidays and the unexpected passing of my Grandpa, I got a little behind. I don’t really want to continue my Christmas posts into the new year. And the absolute last thing I feel like making now is a plum pudding! So this will be my last holiday-themed post for a while, and I am looking forward to a return to normal posts next week. If you’re still feeling the holiday spirit you can find my other Christmas posts here!

The Case of the Christmas Goose

I was already familiar with several Sherlock Holmes mysteries, both from reading the stories and watching the movie and television adaptations. However, I never realized he wrote a Christmas mystery! ” The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” is the seventh story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The story begins with Sherlock trying to discern what he can about an unknown man, based simply upon a hat. The man dropped his hat, along with his Christmas goose, while fleeing from some attackers, leaving behind no other clues to his identity. Holmes’ partner Watson is once again amazed at the detective’s powers of deduction, as he reveals how much he can tell about the man simply from his hat.

The case gets really interesting, however, once the goose preparation begins. Found inside of the goose is the Countess of Morcar’s blue carbuncle, a valuable precious stone that was stolen a few days prior. Upon the discovery of the stone, Holmes and Watson set out to uncover how it ended up inside this Christmas goose, as well as the identity of the thief.

Cooking a Sherlock Holmes Christmas Goose

This was my first attempt at making a goose, so I took a lot of instruction from this recipe, which was actually pretty similar to the directions in The Joy of Cooking. The general consensus is that, like duck, goose breast is best medium rare. I know this seems a little strange for a bird, when chicken and turkey must be cooked the whole way through. However, goose breast is more reminiscent of beef in flavor and texture.

While the breast is good medium rare, you still want to fully cook the wings and legs. This makes the timing a little difficult if you cook the bird as a whole. The recipe I used suggests cooking the bird to medium rare (using a thermometer), then cutting off the breasts and putting the rest of the bird back in the oven. Finally, sear the skin in a pan to get it nice and crispy.

The recipe I linked to is really helpful in figuring out how, where, and when to cut the goose (with pictures!). It also provides an extremely delicious recipe for gravy to serve with it! The only change I made to the gravy was substituting a port wine for the Madeira, and scaling back the garlic slightly.

My Thoughts on the Sherlock Holmes Christmas Goose

Let me start by saying that the goose breast and the gravy were absolutely delicious! So were the vegetables that I roasted under the goose, which soaked up the goose fat drippings as they cooked. And I was able to collect a huge jar of rendered goose fat that I can use for cooking potatoes and vegetables in the future. All positives!

Given the opportunity, I will definitely eat goose again! However, I’m not sure I would go through the process of cooking it again. Yes, it was tasty, but I was shocked at how little meat I got off of a ten pound goose. There was also so much fat. I followed the instructions and pricked the goose all over with a needle before cooking to help release the fat. Perhaps I did not do this enough, or maybe I just had a really fatty goose. I am not trying to discourage any of you from making your own goose. Just be sure to do your research first, because goose is not exactly cheap–and mine definitely didn’t contain any precious stones!

I hope you all have a happy New Year, and I look forward to posting new recipes in 2022!