Oison à l’Alsacienne

Oison à l’Alsacienne (Alsatian-style gosling) teaches poêlage, dry covered roasting carried by butter, and its one truth is absolute: never moisten the bird while it cooks. Pour in stock and you may make a fine braise, but not this dish. The butter must carry the aromas while the gosling keeps the concentrated savour of a roast.

The old kitchen sent the bird through Poëlings (No. 250) and assumed a saucier on staff, brown veal stock never off the fire for the liquor made afterward, and a deep pan fitted precisely to the bird. Unlike a gratin, this dish asks nothing of a salamander; uncovering the cocotte supplies the final colour. A heavy oval cocotte replaces the special pan, and a fine-mesh strainer replaces the serviette. Those are brigade scaffolding. The butter-only cooking, the absence of liquid, and the stock added only after the bird leaves the pot are the dish and must stay. A 7 to 8 pound gosling, 2 cups of sausage-meat, and 8 cups of choucroute bring the professional platter down to four without changing its character. One cook, one stove, one evening.

When it is right, the skin is butter-bronze, the stuffing is juicy rather than compressed, and the choucroute underneath tastes tart, rich, and faintly smoky from the bacon. Watch the cocotte during the poêlage: if the bottom threatens to scorch, lower the heat and add melted butter, never stock or water. Ça se rattrape. Guard that dry poêlage; it decides the dish.