Stuff the _Goose_ with onion, sage, pepper, and salt, fasten it tight
at the neck and rump, and then set it down to the fire, at first, at
some distance, bringing it nearer by degrees.—Paste a slip of paper
over the breast-bone, and when the breast is rising, take it off.
Send a good gravy up in the dish; but first take a table-spoonful
of made mustard, half a tea-spoonful of cayenne pepper, and three
spoonsful of port wine; mix and pour it hot into the body of the
goose, by a slit in the apron: this will wonderfully improve the
stuffing, and is, as Dr. Hunter says, a secret worth knowing.
_All poultry must be nicely drawn, picked, the plugs removed, and the
hair carefully singed off with white paper, and then well washed and
dried._
_Baking._
We do not much approve of baking butcher’s-meat, as a substitute for
roasting it, though it cannot be denied that some articles may be baked
to answer nearly as well as if roasted; and when a great dinner is to
be prepared it may be convenient to send a dish or two to the oven,
but over these the cook can have no controul, and must, therefore,
depend entirely on the baker. The following are articles that may with
most advantage be baked, provided the meat be good and fat, and the
baker be very attentive:—A sucking-pig, goose, some joints of beef,
leg and shoulder of mutton, leg and loin of pork, fillet of veal, ham,
hare, sprats, and other small kinds of fish in pans, or jugs. To poor
families, however, the oven affords great convenience as well as a
considerable saving of expense and trouble.
Beef loses about one third of its weight by baking.