Turkeys and chickens for roasting should never be over a year old. After being properly cleaned, cut the wings at the first joint from the breast, pull the skin down the lower end of the neck, and cut off the bone. Cut the necks, wings and gizzards into small pieces suitable for giblet stew—which should be put on the fire before preparing the fowls for roasting—which should be done by cutting off the legs at the first joint from the feet. Make the stuffing of good bread, rubbed fine, with butter, pepper and salt, and a teaspoonful of baking powder, seasoning with thyme or summer savory, mixing to the consistency of dough, adding eggs, well beaten, with good milk or cream. Fill the breast, and tie over the neck-bone with strong twine, rubbing the sides of the fowl with a dry cloth, afterwards filling quite full. Sew up tight, tie up the legs, and encase the body with strong twine, wrapped around to hold the wings to the body. After rubbing well with salt and dredging lightly with flour, put the fowl in a pan, laying on top two or three thin slices of fat pork, salt or fresh. Put a little water in the pan, and baste frequently, but do not roast too rapidly; raise the pan at least two inches from the bottom of the range. All white meat should invariably be cooked well done, and turkey or chicken, to be eaten cold, should be wrapped while warm in paper or cloth. When prepared in this way they will always be found soft and tender when cooled.
When the giblets are stewed tender—which they must be in order to be good—chop a handful of the green leaves of celery, adding pepper and salt, and put in. Ten minutes before taking from the fire add a lump of butter worked in with a tablespoonful of flour and the yolk of two boiled eggs, letting simmer two or three minutes, then put in the whites of the eggs, chopped fine, with the addition of a little good milk or cream. Some of this stew, mixed with the drippings of the fowl, makes the best possible gravy.
Roasting Beef.
Never wash meat; simply wipe with a damp cloth, rub with salt and dredge with flour; put in the pan with a little of the suet chopped fine, and a teacupful of water; set in a hot oven, two inches above the bottom. The oven should be quite hot, in order to close the pores on the surface of the meat as quickly as possible. As the meat hardens reduce the heat a little, basting frequently. Turn two or three times during the roasting, taking care not to let the gravy scorch. Meat cooked in this way will be tender and juicy, and when done will be slightly red in the centre. Should it prove too rare, carve thin and lay in a hot pan with a little gravy for one minute. Beef will roast in from one and-half to two hours, according to size. All meats may be roasted in the same way, taking care in every case, that the albuminous juices do not escape.
A Good Way to Roast a Leg of Mutton.
Into a kettle, with hot water enough to cover, put a leg of mutton. Let it boil half an hour, and the moment it is taken from the water, salt, pepper, and dredge with flour, and put on to roast with one-half a teacup of water in the pan. Baste frequently, first adding a tablespoonful of lard. Cooked in this way the meat has none of the peculiar mutton flavor which is distasteful to many.
Clayton's Mode of Cooking Canvas-back Ducks.
That most delicately flavored wild fowl, the canvas-back duck, to be properly cooked, should be prepared in the following style: