Christmas Goose

The geese are ordered. Only 2 this year. Recently finished off the last of last year's (final freezer bag of roasted, diced goose breast, reheated and served over shredded sweetheart cabbage with some sour cream and lime wedges).

My plan, as usual:
(1) confit the legs
cut off the legs, rub generously with a mix of salt, finely chopped bay leaves, thyme, garlic (make lots, reserve some) and put uncovered on a plate in fridge
after 24 hours, re-rub the remaining spice mix and put on  clean plate for another night
scrape spices into a roasting pan, briefly brown the legs in butter or olive oil in a heavy pan
add legs to the pan -- pick a pan in which there is as little space left as possible, really crowd them in
cover with melted goose fat and cook for a few hours at 150C until very tender
(for goose fat -- scoop out hunks of fat from the cavity of your goose and render it down, you can also buy some extra to get you started the first time you do this; save all the fat for next time and you won't need to buy it again)
remove the legs, put them into glass jars or another sealable container, cover with the goose fat (strain via muslin), close
they will last for a couple months like this if not too warm, or many more months in the fridge
or eat them immediately
crisp them up in a very hot oven on a rack in a pan before serving
strain any/all leftover fat through muslin and store in jars for reuse -- goose fat is a great fat to cook with in general, does not need to be saved just for future confit

(2) roast the rest
stab the skin all over with a fork (or don't, nothing bad seems to happen if I forget this step)
rub in some salt and black pepper (or use an alternate rub)
roast on a rack in a pan in a fairly hot oven quickly (I generally use 220C, but 200C would work if you want a bit less risk of smoke)
I would tend to pull it out when the coolest part of the breast reaches 65C, or I might not wait that long
some people cook it much higher
if you cook with the legs on you have to deal with the classic roast bird problem of the legs being better, generally, a bit overcooked, while the breasts fare better being undercooked -- in goose this problem gets even trickier because, as with duck, I like the breasts a bit more on the rare side

remove it from the oven and let it rest 20-30 minutes before carving and serving
the skin should be nice and crisp, with an almost bacony crackling saltiness to it

be sure to strain the fat from the pan through muslin and save in jars for future use!

stuffing: generally no longer stuff the geese, but when we did, a prune/apple/onion/armagnac-type thing in the cavity worked well, but the real treat was a sausage-like stuffing of the neck

Probably the best full-goose treatment I've seen is in The River Cottage Year, in which Hugh Fairly-Longname does a confit of the legs, a separate cooking of the stuffed neck, and a roast of the rest.


For fancier full-goose christmasy roast recipes, I've not tried these, but they all look credible:
this or this or this