I have only had goose once. It was wild (I shot it), so it was lean and a bit gamey. It was a bit dry, probably because of how lean it was. I've shot a lot of ducks, and they are not like the farm-raised ducks you get at the store/butcher. Nowhere near the amount of fat in a bird that has flown a couple thousand miles for the winter.
CD
Yup, the dryness of your goose had probably to do with the bird being lean. Generally geese have a good layer of fat: no wonder foxes love them too.
Did you hang the meat for three days (optimal time for goose), cook it in a rather mild temperature and baste/drizzle it often? I cooked mine in an oven bag to prevent it from drying (and not having to baste it). The temp was a steady 150°C for about five hours. If the goose is roasted without a bag (or lidded Dutch oven), the skin is usually "preshrunk" with boiling water in the sink and prickled with a large needle or a tip of a knife. The oven temperature is higher too: e.g. 240°C for 10 minutes, then 190°C approximately 32 minutes/kg for a well done goose. Experienced chefs leave the meat medium rare and/or detach certain parts of the carcass and brown them separately on a skillet/frying pan. I'm a novice so I don't bother. (I'm like my father: I prefer my meat overcooked and tender: "bland and infantile" but free from salmonella, toxoplasmosis and trichinellosis which may be present in undercooked/medium rare poultry or game).
The meat was juicy and tender despite being overcooked. Carving was easy too. I could have detached the legs and breast fillets earlier but I didn't want to open the closed oven bag and mess with the liquids any more than compulsory. It was hard enough to rinse, pat dry, stuff, cut/slash the skin and rub it with salt and pepper and place the long-legged bird inside a double-coated oven bag (two huge bags on top of each other to prevent the legs from piercing through).
The meat had a slightly gamy taste and a brown, firm texture. It was milder but resembled wild duck which my grandma cooked often. We liked the seasonings as well; I just had to add some salt to the gravy. Rice, cranberry jam, pickled cucumbers (+ crème fraîche-honey dressing) and feta-strawberry salad were nice accompaniments; we celebrated my stepdad's 80th birthday a little in advance today.
I really regret throwing the fat away; I just read that it's rather healthy, tolerates high temperatures, tastes great and can be kept for weeks if sieved through clean cloth into sterilized jars. I could have cooked confit (low-temp) fish or beef in it or tried those goose-fat fried potatoes... Darn.
This goose was a chubby, farmed vacuum-frozen one. I thawed it for two days in the fridge. The giblets (liver and heart) were placed in a separate little vacuum bag inside the bird. Despite rinsing and pat-drying (sloppily here and there), I didn't notice the giblet bag until I stuffed the bird and a weird piece of plastic came out of the other end
. - So luckily not a plastic-marinated goose. The giblets/entrails are still in the fridge - they'll probably end up in the bin if I don't get and urge to make a pâté or fry them with shallots. On the other hand, having discarded the fat, I don't dare to through the giblets away... that would mean a life sentence.
Goose leftovers with (re-)congealed gravy.
I didn't tell my mom that I was going to bake cinnamon buns, so she brought a mango mousse cake from a local bakery. After eating for hours, we played a round of pinochle (a 96 card deck, auction, melding & tricks, no teams).
The cake and the buns:
