St Martin’s Day, 11 November, is celebrated with goose in Germany and Austria. A whole bird takes a long time, so at home people often cook just the legs, with red cabbage, apples and dumplings.

The recipe was shared by the German food magazine Lecker.

The legs are boiled first and then finished in the oven, so the meat is tender and the skin golden. The sauce is made from the stock they were cooked in.

What you need

For 4 servings:

  • goose legs — 4;
  • salt and pepper;
  • bread dumplings — 4;
  • apples — 2;
  • braised red cabbage — 1 jar (about 650 g);
  • lingonberries — 2 tbsp;
  • onion — 1;
  • starch — 1 tsp;
  • marjoram — to serve.

How to make it

1. Boil the legs. Cook the thawed legs in plenty of salted water for about 40 minutes. Take them out, measure 500 ml of the stock, skim off the fat and set aside.

2. Roast. Place the legs on a baking tray, season with salt and pepper and roast for 40 minutes in an oven preheated to 175 °C (150 °C fan).

3. Prepare the sides. Cook the dumplings and slice them. Wash and core the apples and cut into rings. Stack the apple and dumpling slices into small towers and put them on the tray 20 minutes before the end of roasting.

4. Add the onion. Dice the onion and add it to the legs 10 minutes before the end so it browns. Pour the reserved stock onto the tray and finish roasting.

5. Heat the cabbage. Meanwhile heat the red cabbage and stir in the lingonberries.

6. Make the sauce. Remove the legs and sides from the tray. Strain the juices into a saucepan, skim off the fat, blend and bring to the boil. Thicken with the starch mixed with a little water.

Serve the legs with the red cabbage, the apple and dumpling towers and the sauce, garnished with marjoram. Instead of ready-made dumplings you can use homemade potato or bread ones, and you can braise the red cabbage yourself with apple and lingonberries.

As a reminder, in October we made German baked apples with lingonberries.

Nota bene

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