Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts

by Girl Scouts of the United States of America

Beef Stew (for four):
2¹/₂ pounds beef shoulder or shin.
2 cups diced potato.
¹/₃ cup turnip cut in half inch cubes.
¹/₃ cup carrot cut in half inch cubes.
¹/₄ onion chopped.
2 tablespoons flour.
Salt and pepper.

Wash the meat, remove from the bone and fat and cut in 1-1/2 inch cubes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and dredge with flour. Sear the pieces of meat in the frying pan in the fat cooked out from the trimmings of fat. Put the meat in a kettle, and rinse the frying pan with boiling water, so that none of the juices will be lost. Add the bone, cover with boiling water and boil five minutes. Lower the temperature and cook until the meat is tender (about three hours). Add the carrots, turnips, onions, pepper and salt in an hour, and the potato in 15 minutes before the steak is to be served. Remove the bone and any large pieces of fat. Stir two tablespoons of flour to a smooth paste with a little water and thicken the stew.

Such a stew may also be made with lamb, mutton, or veal, using other vegetables as desired. Celery and onion are better than turnip and carrot with veal.

Chicken—If a chicken is purchased at the market it is usually delivered dressed. This means that the head has been cut off, the entrails removed, and the coarser pinfeathers pulled out. Many times, however, it is necessary to know how to do this oneself.

To Dress and Clean a Chicken—Cut off the head and draw out the pinfeathers. Remove hair and down by holding the fowl over a flame (a gas flame, an alcohol flame, or a piece of paper flaming in the wood or coal range), constantly changing the position until all parts of the surface have been exposed to the flame. Cut off the feet. Wash the fowl thoroughly, using a small brush, in water to which a little soda has been added. Rinse and dry. Make a slit down the back of the neck. Remove the crop and windpipe. Draw down the neck skin long enough to fasten under the back. Make a straight cut from 1/2 inch below the tip of the breastbone to the vent. Cut around the vent. Slip fingers in carefully around and fully loosen the entrails. Carefully draw out the entrails. The lungs, lying in the cavities under the breast, and the kidneys, in the hollow near the end of the backbone, must be taken out separately. Remove the oil sack and wash the chicken by allowing cold water to run through it.

To clean giblets (the gizzard, the heart, and the liver) proceed as follows: Separate the gall bladder from the liver, cutting off any portion of the liver that may have a greenish tinge. Remove the thin membrane, the arteries, the veins and the clotted blood around the heart. Cut the fat and the membranes from the gizzard. Make a gash through the thickest part of the gizzard as far as the inner lining, being careful not to pierce it. Remove the inner sack and discard. Wash the gizzard carefully and boil in water to use for giblet sauce.

If the chicken comes from the market dressed it should be washed carefully and any pinfeathers removed which were overlooked by the market man.

To Stuff, Truss and Roast a Chicken—When the chicken is clean and prepared as directed, fill it with stuffing (described later), a little in the opening at the neck, the rest in the body cavity. Sew up the opening with a few long stitches. Draw the skin of the neck smoothly down and under the back, press the wings close against the body and fold the pinions under, so that they will cross the back and hold down the skin of the neck. Press the legs close to the body. Thread the trussing needle with white twine, using it double. Press the needle through the wing at the middle joint, pass it through the skin of the neck and back, and out again at the middle joint of the other wing. Return the needle through the bend of the leg at the second joint, through the body, and out at the same point on the other side; draw the cord tight and tie it with the end at the wing joint. Thread the needle again and run it through the legs and body at the thigh bone and back at the ends of the drumsticks. Draw the drumstick bones close together, covering the opening made for drawing the chicken and tie the ends. Have both knots on the same side of the chicken. When cooked, cut the cord on the opposite side and draw out by the knots.

Lay the stuffed and trussed chicken on its back on a rack in a roasting pan. Lay a strip of salt pork on breast. Place in a hot oven until the chicken begins to brown, then lower the temperature and cook the chicken until very tender. Baste often with the drippings in the pan. From 3 to 4 hours will be required for a five-pound chicken. If a fowl is used it should be steamed for 3 or 4 hours and then roasted for 1/2 hour.

Stuffing—For a large chicken mix thoroughly 4 cups of finely broken stale bread, 1-1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/8 teaspoon of pepper, 1 teaspoon of poultry dressing and 4 tablespoons of fat. Pour over the mixture hot milk or water, stirring lightly until the mixture is moist.