Select a young turkey; remove all the feathers carefully, singe it over a burning newspaper on the top of the stove; then "draw" it nicely, being very careful not to break any of the internal organs; remove the crop carefully; cut off the head, and tie the neck close to the body by drawing the skin over it. Now rinse the inside of the turkey out with several waters, and in the next to the last, mix a teaspoonful of baking soda; oftentimes the inside of a fowl is very sour, especially if it is not freshly killed. Soda, being cleansing, acts as a corrective, and destroys that unpleasant taste which we frequently experience in the dressing when fowls have been killed for some time. Now, after washing, wipe the turkey dry, inside and out, with a clean cloth, rub the inside with some salt, then stuff the breast and body with "Dressing for Fowls." Then sew up the turkey with a strong thread, tie the legs and wings to the body, rub it over with a little soft butter, sprinkle over some salt and pepper, dredge with a little flour; place it in a dripping-pan, pour in a cup of boiling water, and set in the oven. Baste the turkey often, turning it around occasionally so that every part will be uniformly baked. When pierced with a fork and the liquid runs out perfectly clear, the bird is done. If any part is likely to scorch, pin over it a piece of buttered white paper. A fifteen pound turkey requires between three and four hours to bake. Serve with cranberry sauce. Gravy for Turkey.--When you put the turkey in to roast, put the neck, heart, liver and gizzard into a stewpan with a pint of water; boil until they become quite tender; take them out of the water, chop the heart and gizzard, mash the liver and throw away the neck; return the chopped heart, gizzard and liver to the liquor in which they were stewed; set it to one side, and when the turkey is done it should be added to the gravy that dripped from the turkey, having first skimmed off the fat from the surface of the dripping-pan; set it all over the fire, boil three minutes and thicken with flour. It will not need brown flour to color the gravy. The garnishes for turkey or chicken are fried oysters, thin slices of ham, slices of lemon, fried sausages, or force meat balls, also parsley.
Break up the bones and cover with cold water; add a slice of onion, a bay-leaf, and a sprig of parsley, and cook all day, adding water when necessary, and skimming. Cool, take off the grease, heat again, and strain. Serve with small, even squares of chicken meat in it, or a little cooked rice and salt. Many people like a small pinch of cinnamon in turkey soup.
Season pieces of cold chicken or turkey with salt and pepper. Dip in melted butter; let this cool on the meat, and dip in beaten egg and in fine bread crumbs. Fry in butter till a delicate brown. Serve on slices of hot toast, with either a white or curry sauce poured around. Pieces of cold veal make a nice dish, if prepared in this manner.
2 cups of cold chicken. 1 large cup of white or creamed sauce. 1/2 teaspoonful of chopped parsley. Salt and pepper.
Pick the chicken or turkey off the bones and cut into small bits before you measure it. Heat it in the sauce till very hot, but do not let it boil, and add the seasoning,--about half a teaspoonful of salt, and a tiny bit of cayenne, or as much celery-salt in the place of the common kind. Put in a large buttered dish and serve, or in small dishes, either with crumbs on top or not.
A nice addition to this dish is half a green pepper, the seeds taken out, chopped very fine indeed, and mixed with the white meat; the contrast of colors is pretty and the taste improved.
Larding is a simple operation. The pork should be firm and young (salt, of course). Cut thin, even slices parallel with the rind, and cut these in long, narrow strips that will fit into the needle. For beef, veal, turkey or chicken the strips should be about as large round as a lead pencil, and about three and a half inches long; and for birds, chops, and sweetbreads they should be about as large round as a match. Three slices are all that can be cut from one piece of pork, because when you get more than an inch away from the rind, the pork is so tender that it will break when in the needle. Put the strips in a bowl of broken ice, to harden. Have the meat, if beef or veal, free of skin and gristle. Put a strip (also called a lardoon) into the needle as far as it will go. With a skewer or knife draw a line on both sides of the meat and along the upper part. Thrust the needle into the meat at one of the side lines; and when it is about half way through to the top of the piece, press the steel slightly with the thumb and fore-finger, to hold the lardoon in place until it has entered the meat. Now push the needle through to the top, and gently draw it out, leaving about three-quarters of an inch of the strip exposed at both the side and upper part of the meat That part of the pork which is hidden should be half an inch under the surface. The needle's course is as if it started under the eaves of a gable roof and came out at the ridge-pole. Continue until all the rows are filled with lardoons. Two rows are enough for a fillet of beef. If the strips are too large for the needle they will be pressed out as soon as the lower part of the needle enters the meat.
Chicken or turkey left from a former dinner, bones and scraps from roast veal, lamb or mutton, four quarts of water, four stalks of celery, four table-spoonfuls of butter, four of flour, one of curry, two onions, two slices of carrot, salt, pepper, half a small cupful of barley. Put on the bones of the poultry and meat with the water. Have the vegetables cut very fine, and cook gently twenty minutes in the butter; then skim them into the soup pot, being careful to press out all the butter. Into the butter remaining in the pan put the flour, and when that is brown, add the curry powder, and stir all into the soup. Cook gently four hours; then season with salt and pepper, and strain. Return to the pot and add bits of chicken or turkey, as the case may be, and the barley, which has been simmering two hours and a half in clear water to cover. Simmer half an hour and serve.
Cut the remains of cold chicken (or turkey) into pieces about an inch long and marinate them in a bowl containing one tablespoon of olive oil; one teaspoon of tarragon vinegar or lemon juice, a few drops of onion juice, salt and pepper. At the end of half an hour sprinkle with finely chopped parsley, dip them in fritter batter, and fry in boiling fat. Drain on a brown paper, and serve with or without tomato or brown sauce. In some parts of Italy this dish is made of several kinds of cold meats, poultry, brains, etc. (the greater the variety the better), served on the same platter, and in Spain all kinds of cold vegetables are fried in batter and served together.
Take a cold roast-beef bone, pieces of beefsteak, the rack of a cold turkey or chicken. Put them into a pot with three or four quarts of water, two carrots, three turnips, one onion, a few cloves, pepper and salt. Boil the whole gently four hours; then strain it through a colander, mashing the vegetables so that they will all pass through. Skim off the fat, and return the soup to the pot. Mix one tablespoonful of flour with two of water, stir it into the soup and boil the whole ten minutes. Serve this soup with sippits of toast. Sippits are bits of dry toast cut into a triangular form. A seasonable dish about the holidays.
Proceed the same with a turkey as with a chicken, allowing one hour and three-quarters for a turkey weighing eight pounds, and ten minutes for every additional pound.
The following of hot breakfast dishes may be of assistance in knowing what to provide for the comfortable meal called breakfast. Broiled beefsteak, broiled chops, broiled chicken, broiled fish, broiled quail on toast, fried pork tenderloins, fried pig's feet, fried oysters, fried clams, fried liver and bacon, fried chops, fried pork, ham and eggs fried, veal cutlets breaded, sausages, fricasseed tripe, fricasseed kidneys, turkey or chicken hash, corn beef hash, beef croquettes, codfish balls, creamed codfish, stewed meats on toast, poached eggs on toast, omelettes, eggs boiled plain, and eggs cooked in any of the various styles.
