Pick the meat from the bones of cold turkey and chop it fine. Put a layer of bread crumbs on the bottom of a buttered dish, moisten them with a little milk, then put in a layer of turkey with some of the filling, and cut small pieces of butter over the top; sprinkle with pepper and salt; then another layer of bread crumbs, and so on until the dish is nearly full; add a little hot water to the gravy left from the turkey and pour over it; then take two eggs, two tablespoonfuls of milk, one of melted butter, a little salt and cracker crumbs as much as will make it thick enough to spread on with a knife; put bits of butter over it, and cover with a plate. Bake three-quarters of an hour. Ten minutes before serving, remove the plate and let it brown.
This is made with the same ingredients as the above, with the exception of half a can of oysters drained and slightly chopped and added to the rest. This is used mostly with boiled turkey and chicken, and the remainder of the can of oysters used to make an oyster sauce to be poured over the turkey when served; served generally in a separate dish, to be dipped out as a person desires. These recipes were obtained from an old colored cook, who was famous for his fine dressing for fowls, fish and meats, and his advice was, always soak stale bread in cold liquid, either milk or water, when used for stuffings or for puddings, as they were much lighter. Hot liquid makes them heavy.
One pound soft wheat bread, 3 ounces beef suet, 3 eggs, a little sweet thyme, sweet marjoram, pepper and salt, and some add a gill of wine; fill the bird therewith and sew up, hang down to a steady solid fire, basting frequently with salt and water, and roast until a steam emits from the breast, put one third of a pound of butter into the gravy, dust flour over the bird and baste with the gravy; serve up with boiled onions and cramberry-sauce, mangoes, pickles or celery. 2. Others omit the sweet herbs, and add parsley done with potatoes. 3. Boil and mash 3 pints potatoes, wet them with butter, add sweet herbs, pepper, salt, fill and roast as above.
For an eight or ten pound turkey, cut the brown crust from slices or pieces of stale bread until you have as much as the inside of a pound loaf; put it into a suitable dish and pour tepid water (not warm, for that makes it heavy) over it; let it stand one minute, as it soaks very quickly. Now take up a handful at a time and squeeze it hard and dry with both hands, placing it, as you go along, in another dish; this process makes it very light. When all is pressed dry, toss it all up lightly through your fingers; now add pepper, salt--about a teaspoonful--also a teaspoonful of powdered summer savory, the same amount of sage, or the green herb minced fine; add half a cup of melted butter, and a beaten egg, or not. Work thoroughly all together, and it is ready for dressing either fowls, fish or meats. A little chopped sausage in turkey dressing is considered by some an improvement, when well incorporated with the other ingredients. For geese and ducks the stuffing may be made the same as for turkey, with the addition of a few slices of onion chopped fine.
When your turkey is dress'd and drawn, truss her, cut off her feet, take down the breast-bone with a knife, and sew up the skin again; stuff the breast with a white stuffing. How to make the Stuffing. Take the sweet-bread of veal, boil it, shred it fine, with a little beef-suet, a handful of bread-crumbs, a little lemon-peel, part of the liver, a spoonful or two of cream, with nutmeg, pepper, salt, and two eggs, mix all together, and stuff your turkey with part of the stuffing, (the rest you may either boil or fry to lay round it) dridge it with a little flour, tie it up in a cloth, and boil it with milk and water: If it be a young turkey an hour will boil it. How to make Sauce for the Turkey. Take a little small white gravy, a pint of oysters, two or three spoonfuls of cream, a little juice of lemon, and salt to your taste, thicken it up with flour and butter, then pour it over your turkey, and serve it up; lay round your turkey fry'd oysters, and the forc'd-meat. Garnish your dish with oysters, mushrooms, and slices of lemon.
One cup of stale bread crumbs, one onion, two ounces of butter, pepper and salt, a little mace. Cut the onion fine, and boil it in milk till quite soft; then strain the milk on to the stale bread crumbs, and let it stand an hour. Put it in a saucepan with the boiled onion, pepper, salt and mace. Give it a boil, and serve in sauce tureen. This sauce can also be used for grouse, and is very nice. Roast partridges are nice served with bread crumbs, fried brown in butter, with cranberry or currant jelly laid beside them in the platter.
Take the flesh of a washed Capon or Turkey cold, mince it so small as you can, then grate or scrape among the flesh two or three ounces of Parmasants or old Holland Cheese, season it with beaten Cloves, Nutmeg, Mace, and Salt, then take the bottoms and tops of foure or five new Rowles, dry them before the fire, or in an Oven, then put them into a faire silver Dish set it upon the fire, wet your bread in a Ladle full of strong Broth, and a Ladle-full of Gravy of Mutton then strow on your minced meat all of an equall thicknesse in each place, then stick twelve or eighteen peices of Marrow as bigge as Walnuts, and pour on an handfull of pure Gravy of Mutton then cover your Dish close, and as it stews adde now and then some Gravy of Mutton there to, thrust your Knife sometimes to the bottome, to keep the bread from sticking to the Dish, let it so stew stil, till you are ready to Dish it away, and when you serve it, if need require, ad more Gravy of Mutton, wring the juyce of two or three Oranges, wipe your Dishes brims, and serve it to the Table in the same Dish.
The fowls for this purpose should be young and fine. You may either boil or roast them. They must be quite cold. Having removed all the skin and fat, and disjointed the fowls cut the meat from the bones into very small pieces, not exceeding an inch. Wash and split two large fine heads of celery, and cut the white part into pieces also about an inch long; and having mixed the chicken and celery together, put them into a deep china dish, cover it and set it away. It is best not to prepare the dressing till just before the salad is to be eaten, that it may be as fresh as possible. Have ready the yolks of eight hard-boiled eggs. Put them into a flat dish, and mash them to a paste with the back of a wooden spoon. Add to the egg a small tea-spoonful of fine salt, the same quantity of cayenne pepper, half a jill of made mustard, a jill or a wine-glass and a half of vinegar, and rather more than two wine-glasses of sweet oil. Mix all these ingredients thoroughly; stirring them a long time till they are quite smooth. The dressing should not be put on till a few minutes before the salad is sent in; as by lying in it the chicken and celery will become tough and hard. After you pour it on, mix the whole well together with a silver fork. Chicken salad should be accompanied with plates of bread and butter, and a plate of crackers. It is a supper dish, and is brought in with terrapin, oysters, &c. Cold turkey is excellent prepared as above. An inferior salad may be made with cold fillet of veal, instead of chickens. Cold boiled lobster is very fine cut up and drest in this manner, only substituting for celery, lettuce cut up and mixed with the lobster.
Boil two large potatoes and strain the water into a pitcher, dissolve two-thirds cake of yeast in a cup. Put potatoes in a pan with a cup of sugar; large lump of butter, and teaspoon of salt. The heat of potatoes will melt the sugar and butter. Mash with large masher to a cream; pour in rest of potato water, add pint of flour and mix together. Then cover and set in a warm place all night. In the morning add more flour, mix quickly and put currants or raisins in as you turn the dough. This will keep them from settling in the bottom of the bread. Put in hot pans and bake in a hot oven. This makes a delicious holiday bread. Eat with butter, hot or cold.
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.
