Mock Goose (bullocks heart)

Mock goose (from a bullocks heart). In the beef-eating north poor folk sometimes cooked bullock's heart instead of a goose for Christmas.

A few days before wanted, wash the heart well and set it to simmer overnight with a good dash of vinegar in the water and a few peppercorns.

If necessary, let it simmer two of three nights, 'till it is really tender, leaving to to grow cold in the broth, and on Christmas Eve skim off the fat from the broth , take up the heart, stuff it with forcemeat made of breadcrumbs, the fat from the stock, a heavy seasoning of sage and onions chopped (the onions should have been cooked whole in the broth). Pepper and salt.

Moisten the forcemeat with the broth, or an egg, and stuff the heart and sew it up. Flour thickly, tie some rashers of bacon across the 'breast', and roast, basting as if you were cooking a goose.

Adorn the mock goose with a ring of sausages and some roast potatoes, and serve with apple sauce. In texture and flavour it much resembles a goose.

This was taken from the wonderful book: Food in England - Dorothy Hartley