BOILED TURKEY.—
For boiling, choose a fine fat hen turkey. In drawing it, be careful not to break the gall, or a bitter taste will be communicated to the whole bird. In picking, remove every plug and hair, and then singe it with writing-paper. Wash it very clean, and then wipe it dry, inside and out. In trussing, draw the legs into the body, having cut them off at the first joint. Let the turkey look as round and plump as possible. Fill the breast with a very nice forcemeat, or stuffing, made of a quarter of a pound of grated bread-crumbs, mixed with two large table-spoonfuls or two ounces of fresh butter, or finely minced suet, seasoned with a little pepper and salt, a heaped tea-spoonful of powdered nutmeg and mace mixed together, a table-spoonful of sweet herbs[C] (sweet basil and sweet marjoram) chopped small if green, and powdered if dry; and the crumbled yolks of two hard-boiled eggs. Add the grated yellow rind, and the juice of a fresh lemon, and mix the whole very well. Skewer the liver and gizzard under the pinions, having first cut open the gizzard and cleared it of sand or gravel.
It is no longer customary to mix stuffing or forcemeat with beaten raw egg for the purpose of binding the ingredients together. Leave them loose, without this binding, and the forcemeat will be much lighter, better flavored, and more abundant. It will not fall out if a packthread, or very small twine is wound carefully round the body, (to be removed before serving up,) and it may be secured by sewing it with a needle and thread.
Put the turkey into a large pot with plenty of cold water, and boil it gently, for two hours or more, in proportion to its size; carefully removing all the scum as it rises. It will be whiter if boiled in a large clean cloth, or in a coarse paste, (the paste to be thrown away afterwards,) and take care that it is thoroughly done. Serve up boiled turkey with oyster sauce, celery sauce, or cauliflower sauce. Sweet sauce is rarely eaten with boiled things—unless with puddings.
Boiled turkey should be accompanied by a ham or tongue.
To ascertain if boiled poultry is done, try the thickest parts with a large needle. If the needle goes through, and in and out easily, it is sufficient.
A turkey (boiled or roast) for a family dish, may be stuffed with nice sausage meat, in which case it requires no other stuffing. Surround it on a dish with fried sausage cakes, about the size of a dollar, but near an inch thick.
It is very convenient to keep always in the house, during the winter months, one or two large jars of nice home-made sausage-meat, well covered. The best time for making sausage-meat is in November. After March, sausages are seldom eaten.