Cut cold chicken or turkey into very thin slices, and stand over hot water, in a dish, until heated; toast a sufficient quantity of bread, butter the slices, put on each a slice of chicken or turkey, dust lightly with salt and pepper. On top of these place a poached egg, cover with tarragon sauce, and send to the table.
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.
Pieces of cold turkey or chicken may be warmed up with a little butter in a frying pan; place it on a warm platter, surround it with pieces of small thick slices of bread or biscuit halved, first dipping them in hot salted water; then place the platter in a warm oven with the door open. Have already made the following gravy to pour over all:-- Into the frying pan put a large spoonful of butter, one or two cupfuls of milk, and any gravy that may be left over. Bring it to a boil; then add sufficient flour, wet in a little cold milk or water, to make it the consistency of cream. Season with salt, pepper and add a little of the dark meat chopped very fine. Let the sauce cook a few moments, then pour over the biscuit and fowl. This will be found a really nice dish.
Take a turkey, dress and truss it, then take down the breast-bone. To make Stuffing for the Breast. Take beef-suet, the liver shred fine, and bread-crumbs, a little lemon-peel, nutmeg, pepper and salt to your taste, a little shred parsley, a spoonful or two of cream, and two eggs. Put her on a spit and roast her before a slow fire; you may lard your turkey with fat bacon; if the turkey be young, an hour and a quarter will roast it. For the sauce, take a little white gravy, an onion, a few bread-crumbs, and a little whole pepper, let them boil well together, put to them a little flour and a lump of butter, which pour upon the turkey; you may lay round your turkey forc'd-meat-balls. Garnish your dish with slices of lemon.
Draw and pick four pigeons immediately after they are killed, and let them be cooked soon, as they do not keep well. Wash the inside very clean, and wipe it dry. Stuff them with a mixture of parsley parboiled and chopped, grated bread-crumbs, and butter; seasoned with pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Dredge them with flour, and roast them before a good fire, basting them with butter. They will be done in about twenty-five or thirty minutes. Serve them up with parsley-sauce. Lay the pigeons on the dish in a row. If asparagus is in season, it will be much better than parsley both for the stuffing and sauce. It must first be boiled. Chop the green heads for the stuffing, and cut them in two for the melted butter. Have cranberry-sauce on the table. Pigeons may be split and broiled, like chickens; also stewed or fricasseed. They are very good stewed with slices of cold ham and green peas, serving up all in the same dish.
Take a large turkey and truss it; take down the breast-bone, and stuff it in the breast with some stuffing, as you did the roast turkey, lard it with bacon, then rub the skin of the turkey with the yolk of an egg, and strow over it a little nutmeg, pepper, salt, and a few bread-crumbs, then put it into a copper-dish and fend it to the oven; when you dish it up make for the turkey brown gravy-sauce; shred into your sauce a few oysters and mushrooms; lay round artichoke-bottoms fry'd, stew'd pallets, forc'd-meat-balls, and a little crisp bacon. Garnish your dish with pickled mushrooms, and slices of lemon. This is a proper dish for a remove.
Make a force-meat of grated bread-crumbs, minced suet, sweet marjoram, grated lemon-peel, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and beaten yolk of egg. You may add some grated cold ham. Light some writing paper, and singe the hairs from the skin of the turkey. Reserve the neck, liver, and gizzard for the gravy. Stuff the craw of the turkey with the force-meat, of which there should be enough made to form into balls for frying, laying them round the turkey when it is dished. Dredge it with flour, and roast it before a clear brisk fire, basting it with cold lard. Towards the last, set the turkey nearer to the fire, dredge it again very lightly with flour, and baste it with butter. It will require, according to its size, from two to three hours roasting. Make the gravy of the giblets cut in pieces, seasoned, and stewed for two hours in a very little water; thicken it with a spoonful of browned flour, and stir into it the gravy from the dripping-pan, having first skimmed off the fat. A turkey should be accompanied by ham or tongue. Serve up with it mushroom-sauce. Have stewed cranberries on the table to eat with it. Do not help any one to the legs, or drum-sticks as they are called. Turkeys are sometimes stuffed entirely with sausage-meat. Small cakes of this meat should then be fried, and laid round it. To bone a turkey, you must begin with a very sharp knife at the top of the wings, and scrape the flesh loose from the bone without dividing or cutting it to pieces. If done carefully and dexterously, the whole mass of flesh may be separated from the bone, so that you can take hold of the head and draw out the entire skeleton at once. A large quantity of force-meat having been prepared, stuff it hard into the turkey, restoring it by doing so to its natural form, filling out the body, breast, wings and legs, so as to resemble their original shape when the bones were in. Roast or bake it; pouring a glass of port wine into the gravy. A boned turkey is frequently served up cold, covered with lumps of currant jelly; slices of which are laid round the dish. Any sort of poultry or game may be boned and stuffed in the same manner, A cold turkey that has not been boned is sometimes sent to table larded all over the breast with slips of fat bacon, drawn through the flesh with a larding needle, and arranged in regular form.
Singe and clean the turkey the same as chicken. Fill with plain bread stuffing or chestnut stuffing. Tie down the legs and rub entire surface with salt and let stand overnight. Next morning place in large drippings or roasting-pan on rack and spread breast, legs and wings with one-third cup of fat creamed and mixed with one-fourth cup of flour. Dredge bottom of pan with flour. Place in a hot oven and when the flour on the turkey begins to brown, reduce the heat and add two cups of boiling water or the stock in which the giblets are cooking, and baste with one-fourth cup of fat and three-fourths cup of boiling water. When this is all used, baste with the fat in the pan. Baste every fifteen minutes until tender; do not prick with a fork, press with the fingers; if the breast meat and leg are soft to the touch the turkey is done. If the oven is too hot, cover the pan; turn the turkey often, that it may brown nicely. Remove strings and skewers and serve on hot platter. Serve with giblet sauce and cranberry sauce. If the turkey is very large it will require three hours or more, a small one will require only an hour and a half.
Pour boiling water on a pint of bread crumbs; melt a tablespoonful of butter and stir in. When the bread is softened, add two eggs and beat thoroughly with the bread. Then put in a pint of the stewed fruit and sweeten to your taste. Fresh fruit of many kinds can be used instead of cranberries. Slices of peaches put in layers are delicious. Serve with sweet sugar sauce.
Chop half a head of celery very fine. Mix with it one quart of bread crumbs, two scant table-spoonfuls of salt, half a teaspoonful of pepper, two heaping table-spoonfuls of butter and two eggs. Stuff the turkey with this; sew up and truss. Wring a large square of white cotton cloth out of cold water, and dredge it thickly with flour. Pin the turkey in this, and plunge into boiling water. Let it boil rapidly for fifteen minutes; then set back where it will simmer. Allow three hours for a turkey weighing nine pounds, and twelve minutes for every additional pound. Serve with celery sauce. The stuffing may be made the same as above, only substitute oysters for celery, and serve with oyster sauce.
