Rub with salt, pepper, and powdered sage. Put the bone side to warm slowly. Dredge on a little flour, and put a little salted water and butter into the dripping-pan, and baste with it. If large, it requires three hours; if small, only one to cook it. Pork must be cooked slowly and very thoroughly.
Roast Turkey.
Wash the outside and inside very clean. Take bread crumbs, grated or chopped, about enough to fill the turkey, chop a bit of salt pork, the size of a good egg, and mix it in, with butter, the size of an egg, pepper, salt, and sweet herbs to your taste. Then beat up an egg and work in. Fill the crop and the body, sew them up, and tie the legs and wings, and spit them. Set it where it will gradually heat, and turn it once or twice, while heating, for fifteen minutes. Then put it up to the fire, and allow about twenty-five minutes for each pound. Turkey must be cooked very thoroughly. It must roast slowly at first, and be often basted with butter on a fork. Dredge it with flour just before taking it up, and let it brown.
Put the inwards in a skillet to boil for two hours, chop them up, season them, use the liquor they are boiled in for gravy, and thicken it with brown flour, and a bit of butter, the size of a hen’s egg. This is the giblet sauce. Take the drippings, say half a pint, thickened with a paste, made of a tablespoonful of brown, or white flour, and let it simmer five minutes, and then use it for thin gravy.
Roast Goose.
A goose should be roasted in the same manner as a turkey. It is better to make the stuffing of mashed potatoes, seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, and onions, to the taste. Apple sauce is good to serve with it. Allow fifteen minutes to a pound, for a gosling, and twenty or more for an older one. Goose should be cooked rare.
Roast Chickens.
Wash them clean outside and inside, stuff them as directed for turkeys, baste them with butter, lard, or drippings, and roast them about an hour. Chickens should be cooked thoroughly. Stew the inwards till tender, and till there is but little water, chop them and mix in gravy from the dripping-pan, thicken with brown flour, and season with salt, pepper, and butter. Cranberry, or new-made apple sauce, is good with them.
Roast Ducks.
Wash the ducks, and stuff them with a dressing made with mashed potatoes, wet with milk, and chopped onions, sage, pepper, salt, and a little butter, to suit your taste. Reserve the inwards to make the gravy, as is directed for turkeys, except it should be seasoned with sage and chopped onions. They will cook in about an hour. Ducks are to be cooked rare. Baste them with salt water, and before taking up, dredge on a little flour and let it brown.