I am a hunter, and I have always believed that if you kill a bird or an animal, you should eat it. Most of the game I have harvested through the years has been delicious – birds such as quail, pheasant, ducks, grouse and doves are delightful; likewise, venison, rabbits, squirrels and bear. Geese, though, are not among my favorites, yet I really enjoy a spirited goose hunt. Some of my fondest hunting memories date back to cornfield blinds in Orange County on crisp February morning, with a flock of 50 geese answering my calls and setting their wings. The great game birds are fun to hunt, but not so easy to cook, prepare and enjoy.
The problem with eating geese is that some of the birds can reach 15 years or more and they are tough as nails. The meat is dark red with no fat, and because the birds fly more than they walk, the breasts are very lean. You can always put a meat like that in a crockpot and cook the toughness out of it, but you also cook everything else out of it and it ends up tasting like whatever sauce you cooked it in.
Last New Year’s Day, my friend Courtney Craft and I shot a nice goose. Actually it was Courtney who felled the great bird. I missed my target three times. How do you miss a bird that’s three feet long? That’s one of my specialties. But anyway, I cleaned Courtney’s goose and he gave it to me as the subject for a future cooking article. I fileted the breast into two sections, then put them in a Tupperware container, covered them completely with water and froze the container. Last week, I thawed the breasts and fretted over how to prepare them.
It has always seemed to me that goose is a lot like veal. Both have a nice flavor, but both can be very tough. So I imagined my goose breast was a piece of veal and prepared it according to my favorite recipe – Veal Parmesan.
Goose Parmesan
One Half a Breast Serves 2
4 cutlets (1/4” thick)
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of butter
1 egg
1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
½ cup shaved parmesan cheese
2 cups marinara sauce
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Serve over a bed of angel hair pasta
One side of the goose breast was sufficient for the two of us, so I wielded my sharpest filet knife and sliced the half-breast into 4 cutlets, about a quarter-inch thick. Next, I put each cutlet in a Zip Loc bag and pounded both sides thoroughly with a mallet. The rest was simple.
Dip each piece in an egg wash, coat thoroughly in a mixture of seasoned breadcrumbs and shaved parmesan cheese; then into a hot skillet of butter and olive oil for about 5 minutes per side. When the cutlets were golden brown, I removed them to a shallow casserole, poured the pan juices over the slices, covered them in a marinara sauce and topped that off with mozzarella cheese. Next, back into a 400 oven for another 6 minutes to melt the cheese and seal the deal.
The cutlets were tender, moist and most flavorful. Probably not very many of my readers have a goose breast on hand, but for future reference, this is a great way to prepare goose cutlets if the occasion arises.