Hearty Goose Soup

The world has stopped. Not the ER — the ER never stops — but everything outside the ER has paused, frozen, the streets empty, the restaurants closed, the city of Anchorage performing the eerie stillness of a place that has been told to stay home. I drive to work on empty highways. The traffic lights change for no one. The mountains are still there, still beautiful, still indifferent to the virus, and the indifference of the mountains is both comforting and insulting — comforting because some things don't change, insulting because the world is ending and the Chugach range doesn't care.

The ER is getting its first COVID patients. The presentations vary — cough, fever, shortness of breath, the shortness that is different from other shortnesses, a particular quality of respiratory distress that I'm learning to recognize the way I learned to recognize cardiac arrest and stroke and the specific pallor of internal bleeding. I am learning a new language. The language of pandemic. The vocabulary of COVID — viral load, oxygen saturation, prone positioning, the particular sound of a ventilator that I'd heard before but never in these numbers, never with this frequency, never with the knowledge that the patient on the ventilator might have been me if the N95 slipped or the shield fogged or the gloves tore.

I come home and strip in the garage entryway — scrubs off, into a garbage bag, straight to the shower. The decontamination ritual. The daily process of trying to leave the virus at the hospital, knowing that the trying might not be enough. I shower for fifteen minutes. I use water hot enough to hurt. The hurting is part of the cleaning. The body needs to feel the transition from work to home, from danger to safety, from the ER to the kitchen.

I made sinigang after the shower. Hot, sour, the steam rising like a prayer. I ate it in the kitchen, alone, the stove light on, the apartment quiet, the city quiet, the world quiet in a way that felt like the world was holding its breath. The sinigang was sour. The world was sour. The only difference was that the sinigang would get better with time. The world — I wasn't sure about the world.

I know I said sinigang, and I meant it — that specific sour broth is burned into my memory from those early pandemic nights. But what I was really reaching for was the same thing this goose soup gives you: something hot and serious, a broth that takes time and means business, a bowl that makes the body feel looked after when the mind can’t stop running. A friend from the hospital had left a package of dressed goose in my freezer the previous fall, a gift from his hunting trip, and the night I describe in the story was not the only night I opened that freezer and let the cold air hit my face while I figured out what I still had the energy to cook. This soup became its own ritual alongside the decontamination shower — slow, deliberate, steam rising, the smell of something real and nourishing cutting through the antiseptic I could still sense on my skin.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 2 hours 30 minutes | Total Time: 2 hours 50 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 to 2 1/2 lbs goose pieces (legs, thighs, or breast halves, bone-in)
10 cups cold water
1 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, smashed
3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
3 stalks celery, sliced
2 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 cup pearl barley, rinsed
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions

Sear the goose. Heat olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Pat the goose pieces dry and season with salt and pepper. Sear for 3 to 4 minutes per side until deep golden brown. Remove and set aside. Do not crowd the pot — work in batches if needed.
Build the broth. Add the onion and garlic to the pot and cook over medium heat for 2 minutes, scraping up any browned bits. Return the goose to the pot and pour in the cold water. Bring to a boil, then skim any gray foam that rises to the surface.
Simmer low and slow. Add the bay leaves, thyme, parsley, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Reduce heat to low, cover partially, and simmer for 1 hour 45 minutes, until the goose meat is tender and beginning to pull from the bone.
Remove and shred the meat. Transfer the goose pieces to a cutting board. Remove and discard the skin and bones. Shred the meat into bite-sized pieces and set aside.
Add the vegetables and barley. Bring the broth back up to a gentle boil. Add the carrots, celery, potatoes, and rinsed pearl barley. Cook uncovered for 30 to 35 minutes, until the barley is tender and the potatoes are cooked through.
Return the meat and finish. Stir the shredded goose back into the pot. Remove the bay leaves. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed. Simmer for 5 more minutes to bring everything together.
Serve. Ladle into deep bowls. Eat while hot, preferably alone in a quiet kitchen, with the stove light on if you need it.

Nutrition (per serving)

Hearty Goose Soup — The Soup That Held Me Together When the World Fell Apart