Turkey to Boil.
Make a stuffing of bread, herbs, salt, pepper, nutmeg, lemonpeel, a few oysters or an anchovy, a bit of butter, some suet, and an egg. Put this in the crop, and fasten up the skin, and boil the turkey in a floured cloth, to make it very white. Have ready a fine oyster sauce, made rich with butter, a little cream, a spoonful of soy, if approved, and pour over the bird. Or, liver and lemon sauce.
Hen birds are best for boiling, and should be young.
Turkey to Roast.
The sinews of the legs should be drawn, whichever way it be dressed. The head should be twisted under the wing; and in drawing, care should be taken not to tear the liver, or let the gall touch it. Put a stuffing of sausage meat; or, if sausages are to be served in the dish, a bread stuffing. As this makes a large addition to the size of the bird, observe that the heat of the fire be constantly to that part; for the breast is frequently not enough done. A little strip of paper should be put on the bone to prevent scorching, while the other parts roast. Baste well, and froth it up. Gravy in the dish, and plenty of bread sauce in a sauce tureen.
Pulled Turkey.
Divide the meat of the breast by pulling instead of cutting; then warm it in a spoonful or two of white gravy, a little cream, grated nutmeg, salt, and a little flour and butter: warm, but do not boil it. The leg seasoned, scored, and broiled, put in the dish, with the above round it. Cold chicken does as well.
Turkey Patties.
Mince some of the white parts, and with grated lemon, nutmeg, salt, a very little white pepper, cream, and a very little bit of butter warmed. Fill the patties; they having been first baked with a bit of bread in each, to keep them hollow.
Pheasants and Partridges.
Roast as turkey, and serve with a fine gravy: in which put the smallest bit of garlick, and bread sauce. When cold, they may be made into excellent patties, but their flavour should not be overpowered by lemon.
Potted Partridge.
When nicely cleaned, season with the following, in finest powder: mace, Jamaica pepper, white pepper, and salt. Rub every part well; then lay the breasts downwards in a pan, and pack the birds as close as you possibly can. Put a good deal of butter on them; then cover the pan with a coarse flour paste, and a paper over: tie close and bake. When cold, put into pots, and cover with butter.
A very economical way of Potting Birds.
Prepare as before. When baked, and become cold, cut them in proper pieces for helping, and pack them close into a large potting pot, and leave, if possible, no spaces to receive the butter; with which, cover them, and one third part less will be requisite than when done whole.
To clarify Butter for potted things.
Put it in a sauce boat, and set that in a stewpan that has a little water in, over the fire. When melted, observe not to pour the milky parts over the potted things, they will sink to the bottom.
Fowls.
Boiled, with oyster, lemon, parsley, and butter, or liver sauces; or with bacon and greens.
Ditto roasted.
Egg sauce, bread sauce, or garnished with sausages, scalded, and parsley.
A large barndoor fowl well hung, stuffed in the crop with sausage meat, and gravy in the dish, and with bread sauce.
The head should be turned under the wing.
Fowl split down the back, peppered, salted, and broiled. Serve it with mushroom sauce.
To boil Fowl with Rice.
Stew the fowl very slowly, in some clear mutton broth, well skimmed, and seasoned with onion, mace, pepper, and salt. About half an hour before it be ready, put in a quarter of a pint of rice, well washed and soaked. Simmer till tender; then strain from the broth, and put the rice on a sieve before the fire. Keep the fowl hot; lay it in the middle of the dish, and the rice round it, without the broth; which will be very nice to eat as such; but the less liquor it is done with the better.
Fricassee of Chickens.
Boil them rather more than half in a small quantity of water: let them cool; then cut them up, and put them to simmer in a little gravy, made of the liquor they were boiled in, and a bit of veal or mutton, onion, mace, lemonpeel, white pepper, and a bunch of sweet herbs. When quite tender, keep them hot while you thicken the sauce thus: strain off, and put it back into the saucepan, with a little salt, a scrape of nutmeg, a bit of flour and butter: give it one boil; and when you are going to serve, beat up the yelk of an egg, add half a pint of cream, and stir them over the fire, but do not let it boil.
It will be equally good without the egg.
Another white Sauce, more easily made.
Take a little of the water that boiled the fowls, (which must be kept hot) and stew with it some cut onion, a bit of parsley, a blade of mace, and a bit of lemonpeel. Mix with this a bit of butter, flour, and little thick cream, and adding the chicken, warm it with the sauce.
The above for veal or rabbit; but if either are not sufficiently done before, then the cream and flour should be added just before serving, after the meat is a little stewed.
Davenport Fowls.
Hang young fowls a night: take the livers, hearts, and tenderest parts of the gizzards, shred very small, with half a handful of young clary, an anchovy to each fowl, one onion, and the yelks of four eggs, boiled hard, with pepper, salt, and mace to your taste. Stuff the fowls with this, and sew up the vents and necks quite close, that the water may not get in. Boil them in salt and water till near done; then drain, and put them into a stewpan, with butter enough to brown them. Then serve with fine melted butter, and a spoonful of catsup, of either sort, in the dish.
To pull Chicken.
Take off the skin, and pull the flesh off the bones of a cold fowl, in as large pieces as you can. Dredge with flour, and fry of a nice brown in butter; which drain from it, and simmer in a good gravy, well seasoned, and thickened with a little flour and butter. Add the juice of half a lemon.
Chicken Pie.
Cut up two young fowls: season with white pepper, salt, a little mace, and nutmeg, all in the finest powder; likewise a little Cayenne. Put the chicken, slices of ham or gammon, forcemeat, and hard eggs, alternately. If to be in a dish, put a little water; if in a raised crust, none. Against the pie be baked, have ready a gravy of knuckle of veal, with a few shank bones, seasoned with herbs, onion, mace, and pepper. If in a dish, put in as much gravy as will fill it: if in crust, let it go cold; then open the lid, and put in the jelly.
The Forcemeat for Pies of Fowls of any kind.
Pound fine, cold chicken, or veal, a bit of fat bacon, some grated ham, crumbs of bread, a very little bit of onion, parsley, knotted marjorum, and a very small bit of tarragon, chopped fine; a blade of mace, a little nutmeg, white pepper, and salt, in finest powder. When well mixed, add eggs to make into balls.
Chicken Curry.
Cut up the chickens before they are dressed, and fry them in butter, with sliced onions, till of a fine colour: or if you use those that have been dressed, do not fry them: lay the joints, cut in two or three pieces each, into a stewpan, with veal or mutton gravy, a clove or two of garlick, four large spoonfuls of cream, and some Cayenne: rub smooth one or two spoonfuls of curry powder, with a little flour, and a bit of butter, and add twenty minutes before you serve; stewing it on till ready. A little juice of lemon should be squeezed in when serving.
Slices of rare done veal, rabbit, or turkey, make a good curry.
A dish of rice boiled plain, as hereafter directed, must be always served to eat with curry.
Another Curry, and more quickly made.
Cut up a chicken or young rabbit; if the former, take off the skin, and rub each piece in a large spoonful of flour, mixed with half an ounce of curry powder: slice two or three onions, and fry in butter, of a fine light brown; then add the meat, and fry altogether, until the latter begin to brown; then put into a stewpan, and pour boiling water over to cover. Let it simmer very gently two or three hours until quite tender. If too thick, put more water half an hour before it be served.
Dressed fowl or meat may be done; but the curry will be better made of fresh.
Grouse.
Are to be roasted like fowls; but their heads twisted under the wing, and served with gravy, and bread sauce, or with sauce for wild fowl. See Sauces.
To pot Grouse, or Moor Game.
Pick, singe, and wash them very clean; then rub them inside and out with a high seasoning of salt, pepper, mace, nutmeg, and allspice. Lay them in as small a pot as will hold them: cover them with butter, and bake them in a slow oven. When cold, take off the butter, move the birds from the gravy, dry, and put them into pots that will just fit one or two; the former, where there are not many. Melt the former butter with some more, so as to completely cover the birds: but take care not to oil it. Do not let it be too hot.
To roast Widgeon, Duck, Teal, or Moorhen.
The flavour is best preserved without stuffing; but put some pepper, salt, and a bit of butter in the birds. Wild fowl require to be much less done than tame, and to be served of a fine colour.
The basting ordered in the foregoing receipt takes off a fishy taste which wild fowl sometimes have. Send up a very good gravy in the dish; and on cutting the breast, half a lemon squeezed over, with pepper on it, improves the taste.
Or stuff them with crumbs, a little shred onion, sage, pepper, and salt, but not a large quantity, and add a bit of butter. Slice an onion, and put into the dripping pan, with a little salt, and baste the fowls with it till three parts done; then remove that, and baste with butter. They should come up finely frothed, and not be overdone.
An excellent sauce under that article.
Duck to boil.
Choose a fine fat duck, salt it two days, then boil it slowly, and cover it with onion sauce made very white, and the butter melted with milk instead of water.
To roast duck: stuff or not, and serve with gravy.
Duck Pie.
Bone a full grown young duck, and a fine young fowl of a good size. Season them both well with mace, pepper, salt and allspice. Put the fowl within the duck, and a calf’s tongue that has been pickled red, and boiled, within the fowl. Make the whole to lie close. The skin of the legs and wings should be drawn inwards, that the body may lie smooth, Put the birds into a raised pie, or small piedish, and cover it with a thickish paste. Bake in a slow oven to eat cold.
The old Staffordshire raised pies were made as above, but a turkey was put over the duck, and a goose over that, forming a very large pie.
Goose to Roast.
After being carefully picked, the plugs of the feathers pulled out, and the hairs singed, let it be well washed, dried, and seasoned with onion, sage, pepper, and salt; fasten it tight at the neck and vent, and roast it.
When half done, let a narrow strip of paper be skewered on the breastbone. Baste it well, and observe to take it up the moment it is done, nicely frothed. When the breast rises, take off the paper, and observe to serve it before it fall, or it will be spoiled, and come to table flattened. Before it is cut up, cut the apron off, and pour in a wineglass of port wine and a teaspoonful of mustard. Cut the breast from one pinion to the other, if for a large party, without leaving meat to the wingbone.
Gravy, and apple sauce.
Green Goose Pie.
Bone two green geese, having first removed every plug, and singed them nicely. Wash them clean; season high with salt, mace, pepper, and pimento: put one within the other, and press them close into your piedish; put a good deal of butter over them, and bake with or without a crust: if the latter, a cover that will keep the steam in, must supply the place of a crust. It will keep long.
Giblet Pie.
Stew duck or goose giblets, when nicely cleaned, with onion, black pepper, and a bunch of sweet herbs, till tender. Let them become cold; then put them in the dish with two or three steaks of veal, beef, or mutton, especially if there are not giblets enough to make the sized pie that you wish. A little cup of cream, put in when baked, is a great improvement. Put the liquor in first.
Stewed Giblets.
As above, and add a little butter and flour. Serve with sippets, and cream just scalded in the sauce.
Stewed Pigeons.
Let them be fresh, and carefully cropped, drawn, and washed, then let them soak half an hour: in the mean time cut a hard white cabbage into water in slices as for pickling; drain it, and boil it in milk and water; drain it again, then lay some of it at the bottom of a stewpan; put the birds on it, being well seasoned, and cover them with the remainder; put a little broth into them, and stew till quite tender, before you serve. Add some cream, and a little flour and butter; give it one boil, and serve the cabbage round the pigeons.
Another way.
Stew in a good gravy, stuffed or not, and season well. Add a little mushroom catsup, or fresh mushrooms.
To pickle Pigeons.
Bone the pigeons, turn the inside out, and lard it: season with Jamaica pepper pounded very fine, and a little salt: turn the inside outward again, and tie the neck and rump with thread: put them in boiling water, let them boil a minute or two to plump; take them out, and dry with a cloth. The pickle must be made of an equal quantity of wine, and white wine vinegar; white pepper, Jamaica pepper, sliced nutmeg, ginger, and two or three bayleaves boiled. When it boils, put the pigeons into it, and let them boil fifteen minutes, if small; twenty, if large. Then take them out, wipe, and let them cool. When the pickle is cold, take off the fat, and put them in.
They must be kept in a stonejar, tied down with a bladder to exclude the air. You may in some, instead of larding, put a stuffing of hard yelks of eggs, and marrow, in equal quantities, spices, and sweet herbs.
Pigeons in Jelly.
Save some of the liquor in which a knuckle of veal has been boiled, as likewise a calf’s foot, or else simmer some isinglass in it, a blade of mace, an onion, a bunch of herbs, some lemonpeel, white pepper, and salt. When the pigeons are nicely cleaned and soaked, put them in a pan, and pour the liquor over them; and let them be baked, and remain in it till cold. When served, put jelly over and round them. Season them as you approve.
Potted Pigeons.
Take fresh ones: clean them carefully: season with pepper and salt: put them close in a small pan, and pour butter over: bake, and when cold take them out. Put into fresh pots, fit to serve to table, two or three in each, and pour butter over, using that which was baked with them as part. Observe, that it is necessary to put a good deal of butter if to be kept.
Note. Butter that has covered potted things is good for basting, and will make very good paste for meatpies. If to be high, add some mace, and a few Jamaica peppers to the seasoning.