Stuffed Peppers with Baked Goose Egg, Spanish Chorizo, and Chilies

This week's recipe was such a blast to develop and photograph. I was gifted three beautiful geese eggs from my friend. As a proponent of actual free range chicken eggs, these three geese eggs made the quality control cut. These geese have lived a happy life feeding on what nature provides, as well as produce scraps, a healthy diet generates richer and uniquely satisfying eggs. Eggs are marvels of nature, they are essentially maternal gifts of protection and nutrition to their offspring. Eggs provide birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish with fats and proteins as well as other nutrients in order to develop into larger animals. With such a huge variety of eggs to take advantage of why do American's primarily only invest in chicken eggs, when there are delicious alternatives like geese eggs available? I believe that is a complex question with a variety of economic, agricultural, cultural, and environmental factors. However, if more Americans opened their minds to geese eggs as a food source, they would be in for a treat.

Geese, like chickens chickens will lay eggs regardless of fertilization. This means by not eating unfertilized geese eggs we are doing a disservice to ourselves, unfertilized geese eggs will eventually rot and completely go to waste if unused. Geese eggs are primarily considered a spring delicacy, there is only a fairly short window to enjoy the large eggs. In North America, geese primarily lay eggs from as early as mid-February to late May.(USDA, 1) In addition to the limited window for egg production, mother geese are notoriously aggressive for protecting their eggs, both fertilized and unfertilized. (Shoot) This is another big turnoff to potential egg producers, also known as farmers.

There are many wonderful applications for geese eggs including baking, poaching, cooking in a precise water bath, frying, pretty much any way you would use a chicken egg. There were countless options for recipe development, but I thought it would be fun to go in a mostly Spanish route. The inclusion of the the Spanish chorizo really helps elevate the dish and set it apart from your regular old bell pepper baked goose egg.

Spanish chorizo should not be replaced in this recipe with Mexican chorizo. Spanish chorizo is a hog casing stuffed, cured, fermented, and dried style of sausage, similar to pepperoni in technique. Mexican chorizo has different spices and is either free-formed ground pork or stuffed into a casing, but must be cooked. I will demonstrate different styles of sausages and techniques in future Joy and Feast posts, but for now I will only suggest to try finding the best Spanish chorizo available in your area. Pretty much any American charcuterie practitioner worth buying from will offers a Spanish style chorizo.

Stuffed Bell Pepper with Baked Goose Egg, Spanish Chorizo, and Chilies

Ingredients

• 1 Goose egg
• 1 Large red bell pepper
• Slices Premium Spanish chorizo
• 1 Jalapeno, thinly sliced
• Parsley, minced fine
• Romano cheese (Parmesan), grated
• Tabasco sauce
• salt and pepper to taste

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Cut open the bell pepper and remove the seed pod, any remaining seeds, and the leftover white membrane.
3. Rub the outside skin of the bell pepper with olive oil or organic canola oil.
4. Gently crack the goose egg and fill the bell pepper cavity.
5. Place the egg-filled pepper in a cast iron pan or an oven proof dish, then bake between 35-50 minutes. The duration of cooking will depend on several factors including egg size and elevation, check at 35 minutes and remove when it is done. Remove the pan when the egg white and yolk are completely set.
6. Slice the egg filled pepper in half with a very sharp knife.
7. Plate the pepper and dress with chorizo, jalapeno, parsley, Tabasco, salt, pepper, and Romano cheese on top. The quantities should suite your needs, an omission of chorizo makes this dish vegetarian.

Total Time: 1 hour

Citations and Further Readings:

• "Canada Goose." Wildlife Services. USDA, Aug. 2009. Web. <http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/downloads/canada_goose.pdf>.
• McGee, Harold. On food and cooking: the science and lore of the kitchen. Simon and Schuster, 2007.
• Shoot, Brittany. "Farmers Take a Gander at Goose Eggs." Modern Farmer. N.p., 17 Apr. 2014. Web. <http://modernfarmer.com/2014/04/farmers-take-gander-goose-eggs/>.