Martinsgans (St Martin's Goose) is a traditional Vatican City recipe (from the Swiss Guard) for a roast goose with a chestnut, apple and nugwort stuffing that's served with a gravy made from the roasting juices. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Vatican City dish of: St Martin's Goose (Martinsgans).
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This is a traditional Swiss-German recipe. St Martin is one of the patron saints of the Swiss Guard at the Vatican, so this counts as a Vatican recipe and, indeed, it is prepared by the Swiss Guard chef at the Vatican. This is one of the traditional European goose recipes that uses mugwort as a bittering herb in the stuffing.
The legend of St. Martin says that, in the 4th century, the Christians of Tours were eager to acclaim the revered evangelist as their bishop and a crowd sought him out at the farmhouse where he had taken up residence. Reluctant to accept the honor, Martin hid in a goose pen at the farm, but a great goose began to cackle loudly, revealing his hiding place. Martin surrendered to the will of the people and agreed to his episcopal election. A tradition arose in Tours to celebrate the feast of St. Martin on November 11th with a full roasted goose, called Martinsgans, a custom still observed today in much of Central Europe.
Ingredients:
1 oven-ready goose (about 4.5kg)
sea salt
For the Stuffing:
500g chestnuts, shelled and steamed
500g tart apples, cored and sliced
1 sprig of mugwort
Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180°C.
Wash the goose and pat it dry. Rub with sea salt inside and out.
Mix the steamed chestnuts and sliced apples with the mugwort, and use this mixture to stuff the goose.
Arrange the goose on a trivet in a roasting tin, setting it breast side down. Pour in about 8cm of water. Place in the centre of your pre-heated oven and roast for 15 minutes. At the end of this time, prick the goose skin with a fork and continue cooking for 90 minutes more.
At the end of this time, turn the goose over. Continue roasting the goose for a further 3 hours, basting frequently with the pan juices during this time (especially for the final 30 minutes of cooking).
Roast the goose until the skin is crispy. Then remove the goose from the oven, take it out of the roasting pan, and let it rest for at least 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, increase the oven temperature to 220°C and return the roasting tin to the oven to let the juices brown to make gravy. Pour off the excess fat.
Carve the goose, and spoon gravy over it just before serving (for how to make gravy see the basic roast meat gravy) recipe.
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