The 3 Bird Orgy, Part I [The Evolution]

I hadn’t really intended for tonight’s dinner to become a 3-bird orgy, it just kind of evolved into one. But I suppose these types of things only happen when you don’t plan them.

It started like this – I got an email from a friend a while ago saying something like…

“Sarah, I really feel for you. I was reading through my How to Eat, and I saw the goose recipe. Holy shit! A fan is involved!”

I then read through the goose recipe, which is stuffed with mashed potato, and sounded divine. Because it is so rich and filling, Nigella doesn’t mention any starters or sides, or even desserts. It’s practically a dinner party in itself. She just says to serve some fruits and nuts afterwards. And the only people I could think of to cook a goose for were Uncle Mike and Aunty Helen. Do you remember them? I had them over for steak and kidney pie with banana custard, and also for Blakean fish pie and rhubarb crumble. They’re some of our oldest family friends.

So the next time I went to the Prahran market, I bought a goose, to bring home and freeze, in anticipation of a future, as yet unscheduled, dinner party. The only goose I could find was technically a “gosling” and weighed about 3 kilos. It also cost $74. Dad and I nearly had a fit. But we bought it anyway, and it has been sitting in the freezer since then.

A week or so later, I emailed Uncle Mike asking him to come over “sometime in the next few weeks for roast goose”. He seemed pretty excited at the prospect. Nigella’s recipe says you need a 4.5 kilo goose for 6 people, and knowing Nigella’s portioning, I figured that a 3 kilo gosling would be fine for us, as long as there were enough side dishes. However, the next day I read a thread on the Nigella.com forum about the very topic of goose-portioning. People were saying that a 3 kilo goose wouldn’t be nearly enough for 6 people, that geese were very fatty and boney, and had hardly any meat on their big big boney bones. These were people, real people with (presumably) more conventional appetites than our lovely Nigella, I couldn't just ignore the portioning advice. I obviously couldn’t cancel on Uncle Mike, so there was a dilemma here… would I buy a second goose, thus spending more money and preventing myself from buying that new Dangerfield dress? Then we’d have more than enough goose for 6, and I’d have to invite more people. Or could I just keep the invitees as they were and just be really skimpy with the portions? But that was just a silly idea, no Nigella devotee could ever in good conscience provide skimpy portions.

Then it hit me… just add a different bird!! The soft and crisp roast duck from Cooking in Advance would be perfect. It’s cheaper, easier to make, and has the advantage of being able to be made in advance, save a 30 minute blast in the oven just before eating. We could just give a couple of slices of each bird to each person, and that would be sufficient. I also decided to add a side dish – the red cabbage from the Weekend Lunch chapter, because I saw a friend's photos from Germany of goose paired with cabbage, and it looked too good not to go together.

So with that dilemma thoroughly sorted out, I emailed Uncle Mike and we arranged for Monday night to be the goose and duck night. (I also went out and bought that dress).

If one bird is a meal, two birds are a feast. And if two birds are a feast, then three birds are a hedonistic orgy of rejoicing in the bounteousness of life. Or something like that.

The third bird in this orgy came in the form of the consommé – again, I hadn’t intended for this to be part of the meal, but I’d made it on Saturday for the hell of it, and thought that I may as well add it as a (non-filling) course to the dinner party. Besides, I couldn’t think of when else we’d drink the consommé.

So, the date was set, the dishes were planned, the guests were invited... all that was left to do was deal with those birds...