Roast Goose 烧鹅
Roast Goose is featured among the local specialties of Guangdong.
Roast Goose (烧鹅) is a goose coated with seasoning and roasted at high heat, one of the siu mei (烧味) roast meats of Cantonese cooking and a very common dish across Guangdong. In Guangzhou (广州) its making technique is on both the Yuexiu District (越秀区) and the city intangible-heritage lists.
How it is made
The goose is coated with seasoning and hung inside a purpose-built charcoal oven, where it roasts at high temperature over wood charcoal. Chinese Wikipedia sets out the marks of a well-made bird: glossy, crisp skin and plenty of juice in the meat, with no gamy taste.
How it is eaten
Roast Goose is normally served with a sour plum sauce (酸梅酱), which is meant to lift the flavour of the meat.
Where it comes from
The Yangcheng Evening News (羊城晚报) quotes a verse from the Guangxu reign (光绪) of the Qing dynasty praising Guangdong roast goose as fine and fragrant, and takes it as a sign that the craft was already widespread in the province by then.
In 2024 Yuexiu District, which has been the centre of Guangzhou throughout the city's history, put the Cantonese roast goose technique (广式烧鹅制作技艺), filed under roast-meat making, on its ninth list of district intangible heritage. In 2025 the district put forward a candidate from Wannian Restaurant (万年酒楼) as a representative inheritor of the technique. In 2026 Guangzhou's ninth municipal list extended the existing entry for Cantonese roast-meat making to cover roast goose, together with roast suckling pig and other roast meats.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-23. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.