Ode to Goose
Roasted young goose became my favorite Thanksgiving and Christmas dish only a few years ago. And I wrote a very long text about it. This year, I gave my heart to another version of cooking goose — smoke-roasting with Traeger Grill. I tried it once out of curiosity and will never go back to oven-roasting for as long as I have my little Traeger.
Very Simple!
Traeger Grill was my cooking device of the year. I used it for smoking all kinds of proteins — poultry, beef, lamb. Also, I experimented with unusual for this cooking method meat cuts. At first, I followed the cookbook that came with the grill. But the more I used the Traeger, the more I changed the suggested routines to adjust the results to my taste. Most of the time, it was towards simplifying the process.
Smoked Goose Fat
When I switched to Traeger, my only regret was losing the fat. While roasting my goose in the oven, I collected goose fat in a special tray. With Traeger, the goose is supposed to be on a smoking rack, and its fat is dripping to a special collecting tray and then into the bucket — non of them providing an opportunity to keep the fat food grade. I used a Crisper Pan and Cookie Sheet by Copper Chef to successfully collect fat for my two last geese. That was a pro. The con was uneven heat and smoke circulation around the bird. I am yet to decide how to fix that in the future. Probably, it will be a good idea to turn the goose from time to time.