Smoked Goose Breast
Without doubt, this is my favourite homemade charcuterie and is relatively easy to make.
The key is controlling the temperature of the smoke. Smoking the Goose begins at low temperature for flavouring and then the heat is turned up to cook the breast. Ideally, you should ensure that the cold smoke stays below 5 degrees Centigrade and after the cooking stage, the breast must have reached 65 degrees at the core. The cold smoke temperature is not always achievable (although if you have a fancy smoker or use an old fridge, it is achievable.
Ingredients
- The breasts cut from a large goose with the skin still on.
For the cure
- 25 grams Demerara sugar
- A dozen crushed juniper berries
- 10 grams of freshly ground black pepper
- 50 grams of PDV salt (not Table Salt)
- In curing Salt, Nitrites are used to kill bacteria and prevent botulism (among other things). Most curing recipes will include it but if your hygiene standards are high in the whole process it should not be necessary. If you don’t use it, the colour of your cured meat will be a lot less pink.
Method
- Mix all of the cure ingredients in a bowl
- Put the Goose breasts in a curing box just a little bit bigger than the Breasts (a Tupperware container is perfect) and massage the spice mixture into the meat, making sure every bit of the goose is covered. Tip in the rest of the cure and close up the container.
- The Breasts will remain in the cure for 3 days. Each day I normally turn the breasts and drain off any liquid which seeps out of the meat.
- When the meat has cured, it will be dark red and slightly firm to the touch. Rinse it off under a slow running cold tap and then pat it dry. Before the next step, the meat should air dry for a bit. You can do this in the fridge uncovered overnight but this can taint the meat if there are strong smells in the fridge. I normally wrap the Breasts in Muslin and hang it somewhere dry and cool for 24 hours. If there is a breeze where you hang it, so much the better.
- Now it’s time to tie up the meat. Use butcher string around the Breast to pull it into a cylinder or stuff it into the sausage net. Whatever method you use, bear in mind you will need something to hang the meat from so leave a loop in the butchers’ string or leave some extra netting at the end with the most fat. During smoking, this end will be hung up so the fat can render a little and drop over the rest of the breast to help keep the meat moist.
- Hang the breasts in a cold smoker and smoke over hardwood. I use ‘sweet’ woods like Cherry or Apple wood dust. Remember to keep the smoke cold and smoke for at least 3 hours. The longer you smoke – the stronger the flavour.
- When you’ve gotten enough smoke into the meat, ramp up the temperature and hot smoke the breasts until the core temperature reaches 65 degrees centigrade.
- When they are done, cool and refrigerate. I normally freeze one and use the other straight away but it will last in the fridge for up to 3 weeks (I have had one for longer).
- Clearly label the bag for the one going in the freezer so that your wife doesn’t send your lovingly cured Goose Breast to the Puppy Rescue place as ‘unidentified meat’!!!