Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall cooks his goose

[faceless]

Cooking your goose

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat ... so much the better since it knocks the stuffing out of turkey any day. I have championing the cause for years, so I'm delighted if people are turning to goose as their Christmas bird. It is a far superior way of celebrating the festive day than a turkey. The great thing about goose is that it's a grazer - it eats grass - and that's what gives that fantastic, dense, almost beefy flavour. You can actually serve it pink, but at the same time you have all that wonderful fat as well. It has everything you might want; frankly, it knocks turkey into a cocked hat - a cocked Christmas party hat.

The problem with turkey is that unless you put a lot of effort into finding a good one - which means organic, free-range and hung "long-legged" (with the guts in, to mature the flavour) - then it just doesn't taste of very much. It's less interesting than a decently sourced organic chicken. In fact, the only thing turkey really has going for it is size - that it can feed a lot of people.

Perhaps more important, though, than whether people choose a goose instead of a turkey is that, if they're getting a turkey, they get a good one. What happens in the supermarkets this year will dictate their policy on how and what they source from farmers next year. If the sad, intensively farmed turkeys stay on the shelves, then the market for free-range farming will get a great boost. It is happening: free-range chicken has been stuck at about 2-3% of the market for some years, but that is starting to change - the share is growing and the message is starting to get through.

Christmas is a good time to promote really well farmed food, perhaps because people's consciences are just that bit more engaged than they are for the weekly shop. If that means they're buying goose this year, then great. I'm running two goose evenings at the River Cottage this year. I actually have a signature three-course meal with goose - different recipes using different bits of the bird.

I start with a terrine made from the neck and giblets; follow that with a confit of the legs - salted, with herbs and garlic, and cooked slowly in fat. I serve that with a puree of lentils and a seasonal salad. Then I'll do the "crown" - the breast on the bone - as a roast, with winter vegetables. Delicious.

If you want the recipes for these (and other) dishes, just go here.

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I've been a fan of this guy's River Cottage series for a good few years now, and I'd go so far to say that it's one of the most relaxing programmes on TV. If you've not heard of him before and you're interested in good natural food then you should look out for it - there have been about 4-5 so far, though the current "River Cottage Treatment" feels a bit naff and more of a reality-tv show than anything else.