given below. Sew up the body and tie the skin covering the craw
securely about the “scrag” or neck with cotton twine. Bind the legs and
wings snugly to the body with cotton tape or strips of muslin. If the
fowl be rather scrawny cover the breast with thin slices of fat salt
pork. Put upon the grating of your covered roaster. Pour a cupful of
boiling water over it to sear the skin and keep in the juices; cover
and cook fifteen minutes to the pound, quite fast for twelve minutes
or so, afterward steadily but slowly. Baste four times, each time very
thoroughly, with the gravy from the pan.
A quarter of an hour before taking the turkey up, uncover and wash over
with butter, then dredge with flour, and shut up in the oven to brown.
Make the gravy by stirring into the contents of the dripping-pan (when
you have removed the turkey and are keeping it hot) the giblets, minced
almost to powder, a tablespoonful of browned flour wet up with cold
water, salt and pepper to taste. Skim before you add anything. Boil one
minute and pour into a gravy-boat.
Always serve cranberry sauce with turkey, when you can get it.
Bread dressing for turkey
To a large cupful of crumbs allow a tablespoonful of minced fat pork.
Season with pepper and, if you like, a little minced parsley. A little
onion juice is an improvement. Moisten very slightly with cream, or
milk.
Sausage dressing for turkey
Make as in last recipe, substituting sausage-meat for the pork. If
partially cooked before it goes into the dressing, it is more wholesome.
Oyster stuffing for turkey
Make a stuffing for turkey in the ordinary way of dried breadcrumbs
seasoned with parsley, thyme and sweet marjoram, and moistened with
melted butter. To this add twenty small oysters chopped fine, and with
this stuff the breast of the turkey.
Or to the ordinary seasoned bread-stuffing for a turkey add two dozen
small oysters, moisten the crumbs slightly with the oyster liquor, and
fill the breast of the turkey with the mixture.
Chestnut stuffing for turkey
Boil one quart of the large French or Italian chestnuts, shell and peel
them. Mash smooth and rub into them two tablespoonfuls of butter, and
salt and white pepper to taste. Stuff the turkey with this as you would
any other kind of dressing.
Fillets of turkey with rice
Skin the breast of a plump turkey, and slice away the breast. Use
a sharp knife and hold it almost horizontal while at work. The
slices should be nearly half an inch thick, and as nearly uniform
in size as possible. Dip in beaten egg, then in salted and peppered
cracker-crumbs; again in the egg, and once more in the crumbs. Set on
the ice while you cook the rice.
Put one cupful of clear chicken or turkey stock into a saucepan; add a
cupful of rice, one-half teaspoonful of onion juice, and the same of
salt, and simmer slowly until the liquid is absorbed. When the rice is
tender add two tablespoonfuls of butter; one tablespoonful of grated
cheese, and season to taste. Cover and let it stand at the side of the
fire until the fillets are ready. Heat five or six spoonfuls of pure
salad oil slowly in a frying-pan, and when it boils, cook the fillets
in it to a nice brown. Mound the savory rice in the center of a hot
dish and lay the fillets about it.
When properly made this is an elegant _entrée_.
Roast turkey, réchauffé
When but half of a large turkey has been cut away, the remainder can be
made presentable for a second serving by “braising” it thus:
Cut very thin slices of fat salt pork and cover the untouched side
with them, binding in place with soft twine. Lay the turkey, cut-side
downward, in your covered roaster; pour a large cupful of weak stock
or gravy under the grating, put on the lid and cook one hour, slowly,
basting several times with the gravy in the pan below the roast. Take
up the turkey, remove the pork, dredge with flour and set back in the
oven, basting it with butter to “glaze” it as soon as the flour is wet
through. Shut up to brown when you have drained away the gravy.
Strain this through a colander, thicken with browned flour, add half a
can of minced champignons, cook two minutes, and pour into a boat.
Scallop of turkey and oysters
Cut cold roast or boiled turkey into inch-lengths, free from skin
and gristle, and put a layer in the bottom of a buttered bake-dish.
Season with salt and pepper, dot with butter and cover with minced raw
oysters. Season this layer, scatter fine crumbs over it, put in more
seasoned turkey, and go on in this order until your materials are used
up. Pour in, then, a cupful of gravy made by boiling down bones and
stuffing in a quart of water until reduced to one-third the original
quantity of liquid, and straining out the bones. Cover with fine
crumbs, dot with butter and bake, covered, forty-five minutes, then
brown. You may omit the oysters, and have a plain turkey scallop.
Or substitute chopped mushrooms for the minced oysters.
Turkey and sausage pudding
This is a good way of using yesterday’s turkey, if there is not a
sightly half left to be set on again.
Into a buttered bake-dish put a layer of turkey, cut—not chopped—into
half-inch lengths. Drop bits of butter over it, but no other seasoning.
Cover with minced, cooked sausage-meat, and this with three or four
olives chopped fine. Proceed in this way until the dish is ready for
the crust. Pour in a cupful of rich gravy made of bones and stuffing;
cover with a good biscuit-dough half an inch thick; cut a hole in the
middle and bake, covered, three-quarters of an hour, then brown.
Ragout of turkey
Break the carcass of a roast turkey all to pieces, and chop what
remnants of stuffing you have. Add a quart of cold water, and cook
slowly until you have but a cupful of liquid. Strain and let it get
cold. Skim off the fat, season with onion juice, kitchen bouquet, salt
and paprika, and set over the fire with the turkey meat, cut into neat
cubes, and a half cupful of champignons (or fresh mushrooms, if you
have them). Bring quickly to a boil, thicken well with browned flour,
boil up, add a glass of claret and serve. Lay sippets of fried bread
around the ragout.
Boiled turkey
An undeniably tough turkey would be better boiled than roasted.
Clean, wash and fill with oyster-stuffing, for which a recipe was given
a few pages back. Truss closely and sew up in a clean piece of white
mosquito-netting. Lay in a pan and pour boiling water all over it from
the tea-kettle, slowly, to toughen the skin and keep in the juices.
Roll the turkey over and over in his hot bath, take out at the end
of two minutes; put into a pot, cover deep with cold water, and heat
gradually to a boil. Cook fifteen minutes to the pound, always gently.
If the turkey be large and old, give him twenty minutes for each pound.
Take the pot from the range, leave it covered for twenty minutes
with the bird in it. Take him out, unwrap quickly, dish, wash freely
with hot butter well-seasoned with salt and white pepper; pour a few
spoonfuls of hot drawn butter over him, and serve. Send oyster sauce
around with boiled turkey.
DUCKS
Roast ducks
Draw and clean, washing the inside in three waters, the second having a
teaspoonful of baking-soda mixed with it.
Plunge into ice-cold water; leave them there for fifteen minutes; wipe
well inside and out, and stuff with a forcemeat of dry crumbs seasoned
with salt, pepper, onion juice and finely minced parsley.
Personally, I do not like sage in the stuffing. It gives a “medicated
tang,” to my way of thinking—or tasting. Many people, however, insist
upon adding the venerable simple to the forcemeat. Do not moisten the
stuffing. Put it in dry, packing well. Dredge the ducks with peppered
and salted flour; lay upon the grating of your roaster, pour a cupful
of boiling water over them, and roast, covered, from twelve to fifteen
minutes to the pound, according to age. Baste four times with the gravy
from the dripping-pan. Uncover, wash with butter, dredge with flour and
brown.
To make the gravy, drain off the liquor from the pan; set in ice-water
to throw up the grease, strain, add the giblets minced very fine,
thicken with browned flour, and boil for two minutes.
[Illustration: BRAISED SWEETBREADS
PAIR ROAST DUCKS
ROAST TURKEY
PAIR BOILED FOWLS GARNISHED WITH SLICED EGG
SCALLOPED CHICKEN
POULTRY AND ENTREES]
Serve with currant jelly, or apple sauce, and pass green peas with them.
Braised ducks
Young ducks are essential for this purpose. Lay three slices of fat
corned ham upon the grating of your roaster, and upon them a minced
onion, a stalk of celery, chopped, a sliced carrot and a tablespoonful
of chopped parsley. Clean and truss, but do not stuff the ducks; lay
them upon the prepared “bed,” and pour a cupful of boiling water over
them. Cover the pan and let them cook, closely covered, in a moderate
oven for about two hours. Take up the ducks, strain the liquor from the
pan, and let it cool enough to remove all the fat. Then put it into
a saucepan, and let it boil. Add one teaspoonful of lemon juice, and
thicken it slightly with browned flour. Return the fowls to the sauce
till hot again, then serve with the sauce poured over them.
Creole salmi of duck
Melt in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of butter, and stir into this a
half tablespoonful, each, of chopped ham, onion, celery, sweet pepper
and parsley, with a tablespoonful of flour, a quarter of a teaspoonful
of salt, and a half teaspoonful of paprika. Stir for three minutes,
then add a cupful of consommé, two cloves and a blade of mace. Simmer
for an hour; strain and add to it two cupfuls of cold duck, cut into
neat pieces an inch long. Boil one minute to heat the meat thoroughly,
and serve.
Garnish with sippets of fried bread.
CHICKENS
Roast chickens
Singe to get rid of down, draw and wash well, rinsing the cavity of
each fowl with soda and water. Wipe and fill bodies and craws with a
stuffing of dry crumbs, well-seasoned with pepper, salt and butter.
Tie up the neck and bind legs and wings close to the body with soft
cord or tapes.
Lay upon the grating of your covered roaster; dash a cupful of boiling
water over them, cover, and roast fifteen minutes to the pound. Drain
off the gravy, and set in iced water to throw up the fat. Wash the
chickens over with butter, dredge with flour and brown. Clip the
threads and dish. Thicken the gravy with browned flour, add the chopped
giblets (previously boiled tender), boil up once and turn into a boat.
Boiled fowls
Prepare as for roasting; sew up in white netting, or in coarse lace,
and souse four times in boiling water. Then put over the fire in cold,
slightly salted water, covering deeply; bring slowly to the boil, and
cook gently fifteen minutes to the pound.
Have ready egg-or oyster-sauce, or bread-sauce. Pour a few spoonfuls
of hot butter, salted and peppered, over the chickens, the rest into a
boat.
Smothered chickens
Broilers, and other really young fowls, are necessary for this dish.
Split down the back when you have cleaned and washed them. Lay them
out flat on the grating of your roaster, skin side down, and put into
a very hot oven, covered. Have ready half a cupful of melted butter,
and after five minutes baste the chickens well with this. Turn them as
soon as the inside has colored slightly; baste again with butter; when
nearly done dredge thickly with flour and wash again with butter. When
they are brown, and the flesh is tender in the joints, they are done.
Thirty minutes should be sufficient. Baste frequently, and as soon as
they are browned you may add a little hot water to the butter.
Take up the chickens and keep them hot, thicken the gravy with browned
flour, and boil one minute before pouring into a boat.
If the chickens are large, make a gash at each joint before cooking,
and cook longer. This is sometimes called “baked broiled chicken,”
sometimes, “chicken broiled in the oven.”
Broiled chicken
When you have cleaned and washed the young chickens, split down the
back, so as to leave the breast in one piece. Lay in lemon juice and
salad oil for half an hour, wipe lightly, pepper and salt, and lay
within a well-greased broiler, skin side uppermost. Broil ten or twelve
minutes to the pound, according to age and weight, turning often and
never allowing it to drip upon the coals. When done, lay, breast
upward, upon a hot dish, rub all over with a mixture of butter, lemon
juice and minced parsley, and serve.
Pass fried potatoes with it.
Baked fried chicken
Here again you must have young chickens. Clean, wash and cut up at
every joint, dividing the breast into two pieces. Lay in a marinade of
salad oil and lemon juice for half an hour; drain, but do not wipe.
Roll in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs. Repeat the process and
leave on the ice for an hour. Lay, then, upon the grating of your
roaster, pour a little gravy in the pan beneath, and cover closely.
At the end of twenty minutes, baste with melted butter, carefully,
not to disturb the crumb coating; re-cover, and at the end of half an
hour more, baste plentifully with the gravy. Now let them brown. Send
bread-sauce in with them, and garnish with parsley.
Braised chicken
Cover the grating of your roaster with a blanket of vegetables; a
carrot, a small young turnip, an onion, a young carrot, a stalk
of celery, all cut up small; a little chopped parsley, and two
tablespoonfuls of finely minced salt pork. Have ready the chicken,
cleaned and trussed, but not stuffed. Lay, breast upward, on the
vegetables and pork. Pour a little boiling water over him from the
teakettle, and set, covered, in the oven. Cover closely and cook at
least twenty minutes to the pound if the chicken be young. If old,
extend the time. At the end of one hour lift the cover and baste with
butter, then with the water from the pan, and shut up for an hour
longer. Uncover then, rub with butter, dredge with flour and brown.
Drain the gravy with the vegetables from the pan, rub through a
colander into a saucepan, thicken with browned flour, boil up and serve
in a boat.
Baked chicken
Clean as usual, and cover with thin slices of cold boiled ham. Corned
ham is better than smoked, but either will do. Wind fine cotton cord
around and around the ham to hold it in place; lay upon the grating of
your roaster; pour over it a cup of boiling hot stock, scatter parsley
and sprinkle onion juice upon it; cover closely to keep in the steam
and cook slowly twenty-five minutes to the pound. Baste three times
within the first hour. Test with a skewer or a fork. If tender, it
should be unwrapped, basted with butter, dredged with flour and left
uncovered to brown.
Garnish with the ham cut into strips. Thicken the gravy with browned
flour, season and cook one minute.
Fricasseed chicken
Clean as usual, and dissect so thoroughly that the carver will have
nothing for his knife to do in “helping” the dish. The breast and the
back should be in two pieces, each, and every joint be separate from
the next.
Wash, but do not wipe. Arrange the pieces, dripping wet, in a pot,
scatter over each layer minced onion, parsley and chopped fat pork;
season with salt and pepper. Cover the pot very closely and set it
where it will not begin to boil under an hour. Increase the heat
somewhat, but cook slowly throughout. _Cook until done!_ The toughest
tendons will yield to slow stewing in time.
When assured that your end is gained, take out the meat with a split
spoon, heap upon a platter, the white at one end, the dark at the
other, and keep hot while making the gravy. To do this, pour into a
bowl, set in iced water to make the fat rise. Skim, return to the
pot and add a cupful of hot milk thickened with a tablespoonful of
butter rubbed into one of flour. Boil one minute—when you have added a
pinch of soda. Have ready two well beaten eggs, add the boiling gravy
gradually and pour over the chicken.
This is an old family recipe and warranted excellent.
Pass boiled rice with this dish.
A brown fricassee
Prepare as for ordinary fricassee. Fry half a pound of fat salt pork,
sliced thin, in a pan; when they hiss and smoke, put in a large sliced
onion and cook until it colors. Now dredge the pieces of chicken with
flour and fry, a few pieces at a time, in the same fat, turning several
times. When they begin to brown turn all into a pot with the shreds of
pork and onion. Add a very small cupful of stock; cover closely and
cook until done.
Have ready a brown roux, made by cooking together a great spoonful of
butter with the same of browned flour. Stir in a teaspoonful of kitchen
bouquet, and add to the gravy left in the pot after the chicken is
dished. Cook two minutes and pour over the dished chicken. Set in the
oven for three minutes before serving.
A pilau of chicken
Joint a tender broiler and leave for half an hour in a bath of
salad oil and lemon juice. Drain, without wiping. Have ready three
tablespoonfuls of butter, hissing hot, in a frying-pan. Fry a sliced
onion in it, and then put in the chicken. Cook for ten minutes, turning
often, and empty the contents of the pan into a pot with a broad
bottom. Pour upon them a cupful of strained tomato sauce, and the same
of weak stock—chicken or veal. Stew gently until the chicken is tender;
take it up and keep in a hot colander set in the oven and covered
closely. Drain off every drop of gravy, return to the fire and add
three-quarters of a cupful of rice which has soaked for an hour in cold
water. Cook fast until the rice is soft but not broken. Put the chicken
back into the pot, mixing well with the rice, simmer three minutes and
heap upon a heated platter. Sift Parmesan cheese thickly over all.
Boiled chicken stuffed with oysters
Prepare as usual for boiling or roasting, then fill body and craw with
small oysters, which have been dipped in peppered and salted melted
butter. Sew up in netting and boil twenty minutes to the pound if
young, thirty minutes if old. Unwrap, wash over with butter and lemon
juice; pour a few spoonfuls of oyster sauce upon them, the rest into a
boat.
Chicken en casserole
Truss the chicken, which must be young and plump, as for roasting.
Into a frying-pan on top of the range put two tablespoonfuls of
butter, a sliced onion and carrot, a bay leaf and a sprig of thyme.
When the vegetables are slightly browned put, with the chicken, into
the casserole, add a pint of well-seasoned stock, cover the casserole
and cook in the oven for three-quarters of an hour. After it has been
in the oven for this length of time, drop in a dozen potato balls, or
strips that have been cut from raw potatoes and sauté in hot butter,
and a dozen French mushrooms. Season the gravy to taste, and leave the
casserole uncovered that the chicken may brown. Ten minutes before
taking from the oven, pour over the chicken two tablespoonfuls of
sherry. When you take the chicken from the oven sprinkle it with minced
parsley. Serve in the casserole.
Creamed stewed chicken
Cut up a fowl as for fricassee, and put over the fire in enough cold
water to cover it well. Bring gradually to a gentle boil. When it
begins to bubble, add a stalk of celery, some chopped parsley and two
tablespoonfuls of minced onion, with a bay leaf. Simmer until tender
before seasoning with salt and pepper.
Make a white roux in a frying-pan of two tablespoonfuls of butter
cooked with the same quantity of flour. As soon as they are well mixed,
stir into them, a teaspoonful at a time, a large cupful of strained and
skimmed gravy from the pot. Have ready half a cup of cream, heated,
with a pinch of soda. Add this to the thickened gravy also, very
slowly, not to curdle the cream. Do not boil after the cream goes in.
Arrange the chicken upon a broad platter; pour the creamed gravy over
it, and garnish with dumplings cooked in the gravy left in the large
pot, after the reserved cupful and the chicken are taken out.
Dumplings for chicken stew
Into a pint of flour sift a heaping teaspoonful of baking-powder, and
a quarter-teaspoonful of salt, and sift the flour twice. Now rub in a
tablespoonful of shortening and wet with enough milk to make a dough
that can be rolled out. Roll and cut into rounds, and drop these into
the boiling gravy. They should be done in ten minutes.
Mexican hot tamales (No. 1)
Boil a fowl until tender; salt while boiling. Chop very fine and season
with plenty of cayenne pepper and a little garlic. Have ready a thick
paste made of one cupful of corn-meal mixed with a little boiling
water. Shape the meat into rolls the size of the little finger, and
encase each in the corn-meal paste. Take the inner husks of Indian
corn, cut off the ends, leaving the husks about six inches long, and
wash them in boiling water.
Wrap each tamale in a corn husk; throw two or three Mexican peppers
into the liquor in which the chicken was boiled, and cook the tamales
in it for fifteen minutes.
Mexican hot tamales (No. 2)
Boil a fowl until tender; strip the meat from the bones and chop
fine. Mince half a pound of seeded raisins, and a half-cupful of
stoned olives, with one young red pepper chopped “exceeding fine.” Mix
all well together, and stir to a paste with two cupfuls of Indian
meal; wet with scalding water, season with salt, onion juice and a
teaspoonful of sugar. Add more boiling water until you can stir over
the fire for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then add six hard-boiled eggs
minced fine; meantime lay smooth the soft inner husks of green corn,
and tear some into strips for tying; lay upon two of the husks as much
of the paste mixture as they will contain, wrap them about it and tie
each roll with the stripped husk; drop these rolls into boiling salted
water, and boil them for one hour.
If well seasoned, these are very savory.
Chop suey
(A Chinese recipe)
One-half chicken (or quarter chicken and as much fresh pork, or you
can make it all pork, but chicken is much better), one large onion, a
handful of mushrooms, a stalk of celery, six Chinese potatoes, a bowl
of rice, a small dessert dish of Chinese sauce (which answers for salt).
When the chicken is cleaned scrape the meat from the bones and cut into
strips about one and a half inches long and one-half inch wide. If pork
is used, cut the strips the same length. Slice the onions thin; soak
the mushrooms ten minutes in water, then remove the stems; cut the
celery into pieces one and a half inches long. Chinese potatoes require
no cooking; simply wash and slice.
First put chicken (or chicken and pork, or pork) into a frying-pan with
fat and fry until done, but not brown or hard. Then add the sliced
onions and cook a little. Add mushrooms. Now pour enough sauce over
the ingredients to make them brown. Then add some water and stew a few
minutes. Add celery, and after a minute add the potatoes. Finally, add
a little floured water to it, making gravy of the water which stewed it.
The Chinese potatoes, mushrooms and Chinese sauce can be procured at
any Chinese grocery. If the rice is not cooked properly it will detract
greatly from the good taste of the chop suey. Otherwise it is a very
palatable dish.
To those who do not know how to serve it I will say: Put some rice into
a bowl, then add as much chop suey as you want. Mix and pour in enough
of the sauce that was used in cooking it. Tea is usually taken with
this dish.
Canned chicken
Joint the chicken as for fricassee, cover with cold water, and bring
slowly to the boil. Simmer until tender, but not broken. When done add
salt to the liquor, boil all up once, then remove the chicken and pack
in wide-mouthed jars. Pack in as tightly as possible. Stand the jars at
the side of the range in a pan of boiling water, boil up the chicken
liquor, fill the jars to overflowing with the scalding liquid and seal
immediately.
GEESE
Roast goose
Draw, clean, singe and truss as you would prepare a turkey. Always put
onion and a suspicion of sage in the stuffing. Lay upon the grating of
your roaster; pour a cup of boiling water over him to cicatrice the
skin and keep in the juices, and roast, covered, twenty minutes to the
pound if of reasonable age. If of unreasonable, cook slowly, basting
often with the liquor in the dripping-pan, at least half an hour for
each obdurate pound. A goose is a most uncertain quantity.
At the last, wash with butter, pepper and salt him, and dredge with
flour, then brown. Drain off and skim the fat from the gravy before
you season the goose. Goose-grease is valuable in the domestic
pharmacopœia, but neither palatable nor wholesome.
Thicken the gravy with browned flour, add the giblets minced very fine,
boil up and it is ready.
Serve apple sauce with him.
Braised goslings