Today, we celebrated a century old Skånish tradition, Mårtensgås. It was my first time, so I was very excited. Jonas was excited too and we had a blast in the kitchen cooking this up. Mårtengås is a holiday where you eat a main course of roasted Goose, apple sauce, red cabbage and potatoes with “black soup” made of pigs blood as an appetizer and apple cake (tart, crumble… I don’t know what to call it really) with vanilla custard for dessert. We are substituting the black soup for a crab soup, as I don’t really trust Chinese pigs blood… call me crazy. This means however, wrestling a couple of fine young crabs to the ground, cutting their guts out and eyes off and chopping them in half alive. Gruesome but true. Now they’re in the freezer getting all nice and numb… Viscious! The meal is definitely not slimming but we never eat butter or cream any more so tonight we thought we’d treat ourselves. It’ll probably make us sick, but I’m used to that so it should be fine.

Mårtensgås is celebrated in honor of St. Martin, a French saint. It is said that he once tried to hide away in a goose pen because he was a hermit and the town had just elected him bishop – he was too shy to face the crowd. Anyway, the geese thought he stunk so they started cackling and gave him away. He was so pissed off at the geese that he declaired they should be eaten once a year, as punishment. Nice guy.

Anyway, we thought this was wicked good, so here you go world, have fun cooking and enjoy!

We begin with the apple’s, a humble little treat, perfect for autumn:

3 medium-large apples
butter
1 tbs ground cinnamon
3 tbs castor sugar
2 tbs plain, white breadcrumbs

Peel and slice the apples, arrange the slices in a greased, ovenproof dish with a diamiter of about 30cm, dolloping a bit of butter between the layers as you go. Mix up your dry ingredients and pour the mixture over the apples, finishing off with another dollop or two of butter. This goes in the oven at 175 degrees celcius for about 30 minutes or until the apples are soft and the sugar/cinnamon mixture has caramelized into a crusty layer on top.

For the custard you will need:
1 egg
2 tbs castor sugar
1 tbs potato or corn starch
4 dl milk (full fat)
1-2 tbs vanilla sugar
Whipped cream to taste

Whisk together the cold egg, castor sugar, starch and milk in a saucepan. Heat the mixture carefully until it thickens a bit, making sure it doesn’t boil. Leave to cool. When the mixture is cool it should be quite thick. At this point add the vanilla sugar and whipped cream. Don’t use an aluminium whisk for this or the mixture will turn a sickly gray colour.

Super simple but delicious crab soup

Get a couple of nice big crabs. They should be very alive! (You can use crabmeat and ready made stock for this but that totally takes the fun out of it… I mean, who can resist a bit of goo and gore??). After you clean the crab and take it’s meat out, boil the leftover shell for AT LEAST about 20 minutes to make a strong crab stock. Pour the stock through a sive, making sure there are no shell bits in the stock. You should be left with about 2-3 dl of strong crab stock. In order to make the rest of the soup you will need:

4 dl milk
1 dl cream
Your crab stock
a small pinch chilli flakes
a sprig of chopped, fresh dill
Your crab meat
Salt and Pepper to taste

This soup is super simple… you did the hard part with the crabs. Basically, just pour it all in a saucepan and heat up, cook for about 5-8 minutes or until the crabmeat is done. Make sure to season it well, you may need to add some fish stock.

The Goose!

We got a 5 kg goose from our bird lady, she is awesome… she cleaned it all up for us and chopped off/pulled out all the yucky parts. To cook simply:

Clean off the goose and pat it dry. Rub it with half a lemon, inside and out, and season it with salt and pepper, also inside and out. Cut up a couple of apples roughly and stuff the goose with them, along with some prunes. I used about 2 apples and 15 prunes. Secure the cavities, with toothpicks, string, whatever you’ve got, so that the stuffing doesn’t fall out. A lot of cookbooks called for “sewing up” the bird, but I thought that was overkill so I just used toothpicks. Place in a baking tray with tall edges and stick a meat thermometer, if you have one, into the meatiest part of the goose (we chose the breast). Pour some chicken stock around the goose into the bottom of the baking tray. Your oven should be on 180 degrees centigrade and the Goose will need a few hours in there with basting every half an hour or so. Ours took just under three hours to cook The temperature on your meat thermometer should read about 80-85 degrees when the bird is done. If the goose starts to look to brown (happened to ours after 45 minutes), cover with some aluminium foil. When it’s done, take it out and let it rest for a while. Voila! Not as hard as I had imagined.

Apple sauce

Why people don’t always make their own apple sauce is a mystery to me. All you need to do is cut up some apples and let them cook in a bit of water and sugar for a while. I even do it without sugar and use the sauce on my porrage in the morning. Anyway, for the goose condiment, cook about one and a half chopped, peeled and cored apples in some (just cover the apples, no more) water, about a tablespoon of sugar, another tablespoon of brandy and a very tiny pinch of chilli flakes. Cook until tender and saucy.

Swedish red cabbage

This is awesome. You will need:

a head of red cabbage (about 1 kg)
half a dl of syrup (golden, not maple)
half a dl of red wine vinegar
half a dl of water (or red cooking wine)
a good pinch of salt and pepper
8-10 whole cloves

Slice the cabbage into fine, long strips. I usually do this with a cheese slicer but Jonas does it with a sharp knife so I guess whatever works. Put it in the saucepan with all the other ingredients, mix well and cook it on low heat for about an hour.

Potatoes

Peel em, cut em up into small cubes and fry in a frying pan with a good pinch of salt until golden brown. Finish them up in the oven (while the goose is resting and you are

eating the soup) if not cooked through.

Sauce

3 tbs butter
1 tbs plain flour
4 dl goose juice (leftovers from the baking tray, after the goose is done)
1 dl cream
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter and stir in the flour making sure it becomes a smooth mixture, add your goose juice and whisk until smooth and light brown, add the cream and season. Easy peasy.