Make a force-meat of grated bread-crumbs, minced suet, sweet marjoram,
grated lemon-peel, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and beaten yolk of egg. You
may add some grated cold ham. Light some writing paper, and singe the
hairs from the skin of the turkey. Reserve the neck, liver, and gizzard
for the gravy. Stuff the craw of the turkey with the force-meat, of
which there should be enough made to form into balls for frying,
laying them round the turkey when it is dished. Dredge it with flour,
and roast it before a clear brisk fire, basting it with cold lard.
Towards the last, set the turkey nearer to the fire, dredge it again
very lightly with flour, and baste it with butter. It will require,
according to its size, from two to three hours roasting.
Make the gravy of the giblets cut in pieces, seasoned, and stewed for
two hours in a very little water; thicken it with a spoonful of browned
flour, and stir into it the gravy from the dripping-pan, having first
skimmed off the fat.
A turkey should be accompanied by ham or tongue. Serve up with it
mushroom-sauce. Have stewed cranberries on the table to eat with it. Do
not help any one to the legs, or drum-sticks as they are called.
Turkeys are sometimes stuffed entirely with sausage-meat. Small cakes
of this meat should then be fried, and laid round it.
To bone a turkey, you must begin with a very sharp knife at the top of
the wings, and scrape the flesh loose from the bone without dividing
or cutting it to pieces. If done carefully and dexterously, the whole
mass of flesh may be separated from the bone, so that you can take hold
of the head and draw out the entire skeleton at once. A large quantity
of force-meat having been prepared, stuff it hard into the turkey,
restoring it by doing so to its natural form, filling out the body,
breast, wings and legs, so as to resemble their original shape when the
bones were in. Roast or bake it; pouring a glass of port wine into the
gravy. A boned turkey is frequently served up cold, covered with lumps
of currant jelly; slices of which are laid round the dish.
Any sort of poultry or game may be boned and stuffed in the same manner.
A cold turkey that has not been boned is sometimes sent to table larded
all over the breast with slips of fat bacon, drawn through the flesh
with a larding needle, and arranged in regular form.