POULTRY.

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If care is taken in picking and dressing fowls or birds, there is no need of washing them. In France it is never done, unless there is absolutely something to wash off; then it is done as delicately as possible. In expostulating once with an old negro auntie for soaking all the blood and flavor out of a fowl, she quickly replied, “Bless my soul, child! haven’t I cooked chickens for fifty years?”

When you buy a goose or a duck, be sure that it is young. Never buy an old duck. The first I ever bought were from a penful at market. I thought myself very clever in choosing the largest, all being one price; not so clever at dinner, when my husband tried to carve those tough and aged drakes.

Roast Turkey.

The secret in having a good roast turkey is to baste it often, and to cook it long enough. A small turkey of seven or eight pounds (the best selection if fat) should be roasted or baked three hours at least. A very large turkey should not be cooked a minute less than four hours; an extra hour is preferable to a minute less. If properly basted, they will not become dry.

With much experience in hotel life, where turkeys are ruined by the wholesale, I have never seen a piece of turkey that was fit to eat. Besides being tasteless, they are almost invariably undercooked. First, then, after the turkey is dressed, season it well, sprinkling pepper and salt on the inside; stuff it, and tie it well in shape; either lard the top or lay slices of bacon over it; wet the skin, and sprinkle it well with pepper, salt, and flour. It is well to allow a turkey to remain some time stuffed before cooking. Pour a little boiling water into the bottom of the dripping-pan. If it is to be roasted, do not put it too near the coals at first, until it gets well heated through; then gradually draw it nearer. The excellence of the turkey depends much upon the frequency of basting it; occasionally baste it with a little butter, oftener with its own drippings. Just before taking it from the fire or out of the oven, put on more melted butter, and sprinkle over more flour; this will make the skin more crisp and brown. While the turkey is cooking, boil the giblets well; chop them fine, and mash the liver. When the turkey is done, put it on a hot platter. Put the baking-pan on the fire, dredge in a little flour, and when cooked stir in a little boiling water or stock; strain it, skim off every particle of fat; add the giblets; season with salt and pepper. If chestnut stuffing is used, add some boiled chestnuts to the gravy; this is decidedly the best sauce for a turkey. Besides the gravy, always serve cranberry (see receipt, page 204), currant, or plum jelly with turkey. These are more attractive molded the day before they are served. The currant or plum jelly is melted and remolded in a pretty form. Roast turkeys are often garnished with little sausage-balls.

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Stuffing for Baked Turkey, Chicken, Veal, and Lamb (New York Cooking-school).

Soak half a pound of bread (with the crust cut off) in tepid water, then squeeze it dry. Put three ounces of butter into a stew-pan, and when hot stir in a small onion minced (one and a half ounces), which color slightly; then add the bread, with three table-spoonfuls of parsley (half an ounce) chopped fine, half a tea-spoonful of powdered thyme, a little grated nutmeg, pepper, salt, and a gill of stock. Stir it over the fire until it leaves the bottom and sides; then mix in two eggs.

Stuffing for Roast Turkeys, Chickens, Ducks, and Geese.

The commonest stuffing is this: Two onions, five ounces of soaked and squeezed bread, eight sage leaves, an ounce of butter, pepper, salt, one egg, a little piece of pork minced. Mince the onions, and fry them in the sautÉ pan before adding them to the other ingredients. Some chopped celery is always a good addition.

Chestnut, Potato, Veal, and Oyster Stuffings.

The chestnut stuffing is made by adding chestnuts to the ordinary stuffing. They are put on the fire in a saucepan or spider to burst the skins; they are then boiled in very salted water or stock; some are also put into the sauce. Or turkeys, etc., may be stuffed with boiled, mashed, and seasoned sweet-potatoes or Irish potatoes.

The great cooks make extra trouble and expense in preparing a force-meat stuffing of cold veal, cold ham, bacon, and a few bread-crumbs, mixed and seasoned with cayenne, salt, lemon-juice, summer savory, parsley, or any sweet herbs. Then they often add truffles cut into little balls; or, an oyster stuffing is made by merely adding plenty of whole oysters (not chopped) to the ordinary turkey bread stuffing. It should be well seasoned, or the oysters will taste insipid.

Boiled Turkey.

If a boiled turkey is not well managed, it will be quite tasteless. Choose a hen turkey. If not well trussed and tied, the legs and wings of a boiled fowl will be found pointing to all the directions of the compass. Cut the legs at the first joint and draw them into the body. Fasten the small ends of the wings under the back, and tie them securely with strong twine. Sprinkle over plenty of salt, pepper, and lemon-juice, and put it into boiling water. Boil it slowly two hours, or until quite tender. It is generally served in a bed of rice, with oyster, caper, cauliflower, parsley, or Hollandaise sauce. Pour part of the sauce over the turkey. Reserve the giblets for giblet soup. It can be stuffed or not, the same as for roasting.

Turkey or Chicken Hash

is made like beef hash, only substituting turkey or chicken for beef.

Turkey Braised.

If you have an old turkey unfit for roasting or boiling, braise it for four or five hours, adding a little wine (toward the last) to the stock, if you choose.

Turkey Galantine, or Boned Turkey.

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Choose a fat hen turkey. When dressing it, leave the crop skin (the skin over the breast) whole; cut off the legs, wings, and neck. Now slit the skin at the back, and carefully remove it all around. Cut out the breasts carefully; cut them into little elongated pieces, about a quarter of an inch square and an inch long (parallelograms); or cut them any way you like. Season them with pepper, salt, a little nutmeg, mace, pounded cloves, sweet basil, and a little chopped parsley, all mixed. Now make a force-meat, with a pound and a quarter of lean veal or fresh pork, well freed from skin and gristle. Mix this with the meat of the turkey (all but the breasts); chop it well. Then chop an equal volume of fresh bacon, which mix with the other chopped meat: season this with the condiments last mentioned. Now pound it in a mortar to a paste. Cut one pound of truffles, half a pound of cooked pickled tongue, and half a pound of cooked fat bacon, into three-quarter-inch dice. Season these also.

Spread the turkey skin on a board. Make alternate layers on it, first of half of the force-meat, then half of the turkey breasts, then half of the dice of tongue, truffles, and bacon, then, turkey fillets and dice again: save some of the force-meat to put on the last layer. Now begin at one side and roll it over, giving it a round and long shape; sew up the skin; wrap it, pressing it closely in a napkin; tie it at the extremities, and also tie it across in two places, to keep it in an oval shape with round ends.

Boil the galantine gently for four hours in boiling water (or, better, in stock), with the bones of the turkey thrown in. At the end of that time, take the stew-pan off the fire. Let the galantine cool in the liquor one hour; then drain it, and put it on a dish with a seven-pound weight on it.

When cold, take the galantine out of the napkin; put it at the end of an open oven for some minutes to melt the fat, which wipe off with a cloth; glaze it, or sprinkle it with a little egg and fine bread-crumbs, and bake it a few minutes. It is, of course, to be sliced when eaten. It is generally served placed on a wooden standard, as described for a Mayonnaise of salmon.

A boned turkey, or galantine, is seen at almost all large parties. It is convenient to have one in the house, as it will keep for a long time, and is very nice for lunch or tea. It costs ten dollars to buy one, and about half of the amount to make it. Of course, it is some trouble to make; yet if one’s time is worth less than one’s money, there is plenty of time for the purpose, as it can be made three or four days before an entertainment. Chicken and game galantines are made in the same way. The figure on page 169 is a boned turkey or chicken prepared for boiling.

Mixed Spices for Seasoning.

In cities, mixed spices can be purchased, which are prepared by professional cooks, and which save much trouble to inexperienced compounders. This is one of their receipts: “Take of nutmegs and mace, one ounce each; of cloves and white pepper-corns, two ounces each; of sweet basil, marjoram, and thyme, one ounce each, and half an ounce of bay leaves: these herbs should be previously dried for the purpose. Roughly pound the spices, then place the whole of the above ingredients between two sheets of white paper, and after the sides have been folded over tightly, to prevent the evaporation of the volatile properties of the herbs and spices, place them in a warm place to become perfectly dry. They must then be pounded quickly, put through a sieve, corked up tightly in bottles, and kept for use.”

A Simple Way of Preparing Boned Turkey or Chicken.

Boil a turkey or chicken in as little water as possible, until the bones can easily be separated from the meat. Remove all of the skin; slice and mix together the light and dark parts; season with pepper and salt. Boil down the liquid in which the turkey or chicken was boiled; then pour it on the meat. Shape it like a loaf of bread; wrap it tightly in a cloth; press it with a heavy weight for a few hours. When served, it is cut into thin slices.

CHICKENS.

One is absolutely bewildered at the hundred dishes which are made of chickens. Most of the entrÉes are prepared with the breasts alone, called fillets. There are boudins and quenelles of fowls, and fillets of fowls À la Toulouse, À la marÉchale, etc., etc., and supreme of fillets of fowls À l’Écarlate, etc., and aspics of fowls; then, chickens À la Marengo, À la Lyonnaise, À la reine; then, marinades and capitolades of chickens, and fricassees of chickens of scores of names. I would explain some of these long-sounding terms if this book were not already too long, and if at last they were any better than when cooked in the more simple ways.

Spring Chickens.

The excellence of spring chickens depends as much on feeding as on cooking them. If there are conveniences for building a coop, say five feet square, on the ground, where some spring chickens can be kept for a few weeks, feeding them with the scraps from the kitchen, and grain, they will be found plump, the meat white, and the flavor quite different from the thin, poorly fed chickens just from market.

The Southern negro cooks have certainly the best way of cooking spring chickens, and the manner is very simple. Cut them into pieces, dip each piece hastily in water, then sprinkle it with pepper and salt, and roll it in plenty of flour. Have some lard in a sautÉ pan very hot, in which fry, or rather sautÉ, the chickens, covering them well, and watching that they may not burn. When done, arrange them on a hot dish; pour out the lard from the spider, if there is more than a tea-spoonful; throw in a cupful or more of milk, or, better, cream thickened with a little flour; stir it constantly, seasoning it with pepper and salt; pour it over the chickens. It makes a pleasant change to add chopped parsley to the gravy.

A nice dish is made by serving cauliflowers in the same platter with the dressing poured over both; or with potatoes cut out in little balls, and boiled in very salt water, served in the same way; or they may be surrounded with water-cresses.

Spring Chickens, Baked.

Cut them open at the back, spread them out in a baking-pan, sprinkle on plenty of pepper, salt, and a little flour. Baste them well with hot water, which should be in the bottom of the pan, also at different times with a little butter. When done, rub butter over them, as you would beefsteak, and set them in the oven for a moment before serving.

Roast and Boiled Chickens.

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Chickens are roasted and boiled as are turkeys. In winter there is no better way of cooking chickens than to boil them whole, and pour over them a good caper or pickle sauce just before serving. A large tough chicken is very good managed in this manner. Of course, the chicken should be put into boiling water, which should not stop boiling until the chicken is entirely done. With this management it will retain its flavor, yet the water in which it is boiled should always be saved for soup. It is a valuable addition to any kind of soup. The cut represents a chicken in a bed of rice.

Baked Chickens or Fish (for Camping Parties).

Dress the chickens or fish, making as small incisions as possible, and without removing the skin, feathers, or scales. Fill them with the usual bread stuffing, well seasoned with chopped pork, onion, pepper, and salt. Sew the cut quite firmly. Cover the chicken or fish entirely with wet clay, spreading it half an inch to an inch thick. Bury it in a bed of hot ashes, with coals on top, and let it bake about an hour and a quarter if it weighs two pounds. The skin, feathers, or scales will peel off when removing the cake of clay, leaving the object quite clean, and especially delicious with that “best of sauces, a good appetite;” however, there is no reason why a camping party should not indulge in other sauces at the same time.

A chicken may be surrounded in the same way with a paste of flour and water, and baked in the oven.

A Fricassee of Chicken.

Cut two chickens into pieces. Reserve all the white meat and the best pieces for the fricassee. The trimmings and the inferior pieces use to make the gravy. Put these pieces into a porcelain kettle, with a quart of cold water, one clove, pepper, salt, a small onion, a little bunch of parsley, and a small piece of pork; let it simmer for half an hour, and then put in the pieces for the fricassee; let them boil slowly until they are quite done; take them out then, and keep them in a hot place. Now strain the gravy, take off all the fat, and add it to a roux of half a cupful of flour and a small piece of butter. Let this boil; take it off the stove and stir in three yolks of eggs mixed with two or three table-spoonfuls of cream; also the juice of half a lemon. Do not let it boil after the eggs are in, or they will curdle. Stir it well, keeping it hot a moment; then pour it over the chicken, and serve. Some of the fricassees with long and formidable names are not much more than wine or mushrooms, or both, added to this receipt.

Fricassee of Chicken (Mrs. Gratz Brown).

SautÉ a chicken (cut into pieces) with a little minced onion, in hot lard. When the pieces are brown, add a table-spoonful of flour, and let it cook a minute, stirring it constantly. Add then one and a half pints of boiling water or stock, a table-spoonful of vinegar, a table-spoonful of sherry, a tea-spoonful of Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. When it is taken off the fire, strain the sauce, taking off any particles of fat; mix in the yolk of an egg. Pour it over the chicken, and serve.

Ranaque Chickens.

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After the first experience in making this chicken dish, it is not difficult to prepare, and it makes an exceedingly nice course for dinner. With a sharp penknife, slit the chicken down the back; then, keeping the knife close to the bones, scrape down the sides, and the bones will come out. Break them at the joints when coming to the drumsticks and wing-bones. These bones are left in. Now chop fine, cold cooked lamb enough to stuff the chicken; season it with pepper, salt, one even tea-spoonful of summer savory, two heaping table-spoonfuls of chopped pork, and plenty of lemon-juice, or juice of one lemon. Stuff the chicken, and sew it, giving it a good shape; turn the ends of the wings under the back, and tie them there firmly, also the legs of the chicken down close to the back, so that the top may present a plump surface, to carve in slices across, without having bones in the way. Now lard the chicken two or three rows on top. If you have no larding-needle, cut open the skin with the penknife, and insert the little pieces of pork, all of equal length and size. Bake this until it is thoroughly done, basting it very often (once or twice with a little butter). Pour a tomato-sauce (see page 125) around it in the bottom of the dish in which it is served.

Chicken Breasts.

Trim the breasts of some chickens to resemble trimmed lamb chops. Stick a leg bone (the joints cut off at each end) into the end of each cutlet; pepper and salt them, roll them in flour, and fry them in a sautÉ pan with butter. Serve them in a circle in a dish with pease, mashed potatoes, cauliflowers, beans, or tomatoes, or almost any kind of vegetable, in the centre. They are still nicer larded on one side, choosing the same side for all of them. When larded, they should not be rolled in flour. This is a very nice course for a dinner company. These fillets are also nice served in a circle, with the same sauce poured in the centre as is served with deviled chicken.

Deviled Chicken, with Sauce (Cunard Steamer).

The chicken is boiled tender in a little salted water. When cold, it is cut into pieces; these pieces are basted with butter, and broiled.

Sauce.—One tea-spoonful of made mustard, two table-spoonfuls of Worcestershire sauce, three table-spoonfuls of vinegar; boil all together, and pour over the chicken. This dish is generally served on the Cunard steamers for supper. Or, boil the chickens, cut them into pieces, pepper and salt them, roll them in flour, sautÉ them in a little hot lard, and serve cream-sauce, the same as for fried spring chickens. This makes a good winter breakfast.

Chicken Croquettes (French Cook).

Boil one chicken, with an onion and a clove of garlic (if you have it) thrown into the water, add some bones and pieces of beef also; this will make a stock, if you have not some already saved. Cut the chicken, when cooked, into small dice; mince half of a large onion, or one small one, and two sprigs of parsley together. Put into a saucepan a piece of butter the size of a small egg; when hot, put in the minced onion and parsley and half a cupful of flour; stir well until it is well cooked and of a light-brown color; then add a cupful and a half of stock, or of the stock in the kettle, boiled down or reduced until it is quite strong, then freed of fat; the stronger the stock, the better of course. Stir it into a smooth paste, add pepper, salt, not quite half of a grated nutmeg, the juice of about a quarter of a lemon, and two table-spoonfuls of sherry, Madeira, or port wine. When all is well stirred, mix in the pieces of chicken. Mold into the ordinary croquette shape, or into the form of pears. When they are egged and cracker-crumbed, fry them in boiling-hot lard. If they are molded into pear shape, a little stem of parsley may be stuck into each pear after it is cooked, to represent the pear stem.

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Chicken Croquettes (Mrs. Chauncey I. Filley).

Ingredients: Two chickens and two sets of brains, both boiled; one tea-cupful of suet, chopped fine; two sprigs of parsley, chopped; one nutmeg, grated; an even table-spoonful of onion, after it is chopped as fine as possible; the juice and grated rind of one lemon; salt and black and red pepper, to taste. Chop the meat very fine; mix all well together; add cream until it is quite moist, or just right for molding. This quantity will make two dozen croquettes. Now mold them as in cut (see above); dip them into beaten egg, and roll them in pounded cracker or bread-crumbs; fry in boiling-hot lard. Cold meat of any kind can be made into croquettes following this receipt, only substituting an equal amount of meat for the chicken, and of boiled rice for the brains. Cold lamb or veal is especially good in croquettes. Cold beef is very good also. Many prefer two cupfuls of boiled rice (fresh boiled and still hot when mixed with the chicken) for the chicken croquettes, instead of brains.

Chicken Cutlets.

These cutlets are only chicken croquettes in a different form. Prepare them like trimmed lamb chops, in the following manner: Make a shape pointed at one end and round at the other; then press it with the blade of a knife, giving it the shape of a cutlet. Egg and bread-crumb these cutlets, and fry them in boiling lard; then stick in a paper ruffle at the pointed end. Serve them, one cutlet overlapping the other, in a circle, with a tomato-sauce in the centre of it, or around a pile of mushrooms or of pease. This is considered a very palatable dish for a dinner company.

Chicken, With Macaroni or with Rice (French Cook).

Cut the chicken into pieces; fry or sautÉ them in a little hot drippings, or in butter the size of an egg; when nearly done, put the pieces into another saucepan; add a heaping tea-spoonful of flour to the hot drippings, and brown it. Mix a little cold or lukewarm water to the roux; when smooth, add a pint or more of boiling water; pour this over the chicken in the saucepan, add a chopped sprig of parsley, a clove of garlic, pepper, and salt. Let the chicken boil half or three-quarters of an hour, or until it is thoroughly done; then take out the pieces of chicken. Pass the sauce through a sieve, and remove all the fat. Have ready some macaroni which has been boiled in salted water, and let it boil in this sauce. Arrange the pieces of chicken tastefully on a dish; pour the macaroni and sauce over them, and serve; or, instead of macaroni, use boiled rice, which may be managed in the same way as the macaroni.

Chetney of Chicken (Mrs. E. L. Youmans).

Ingredients: One large or two small chickens, one-quart can of tomatoes, butter the size of a pigeon’s egg, one table-spoonful of flour, one heaping tea-spoonful of minced onion, one tea-spoonful of minced pork, one small bottle of chetney (one gill).

Press the tomatoes through a sieve. Put the butter (one and a half ounces) into a stew-pan, and when hot throw in the minced onions; cook them a few minutes, then add the flour, which cook thoroughly; now pour in the tomato pulp, seasoned with pepper, salt, and the minced pork, and stir it thoroughly with an egg-whisk until quite smooth, and then mix well into it the chetney, and next the cooked chicken cut into pieces. The chicken may be sautÉd (if young) in a little hot fat, or it may be roasted or boiled as for a fricassee. The chicken is neatly arranged on a hot platter, with the sauce poured over. Slices of beef (the fillet preferable) may be served in the same way with the chetney sauce.

This chetney is an Indian sauce, and can be procured at the first-class groceries.

Curry of Chicken (Mrs. Youmans).

Cut the chicken into pieces, leaving out the body bones; season them with pepper and salt; fry them in a sautÉ pan in butter; cut an onion into small slices, which fry in the butter until quite red; now add a tea-cupful of stock freed from fat, an even tea-spoonful of sugar, and a table-spoonful of curry-powder, mixed with a little flour; rub the curry-powder and flour smooth with a little stock before adding it to the saucepan; put in the chicken pieces, and let them boil two or three minutes; add then the juice of half a lemon. Serve this in the centre of a bed of boiled rice.

Veal, lamb, rabbits, or turkey may be cooked in the same way. The addition of half a cocoa-nut, grated, is an improvement.

Chickens for Supper (Mrs. Roberts, of Utica).

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After having boiled a chicken or chickens in as little water as possible until the meat falls from the bones, pick off the meat, chop it rather fine, and season it well with pepper and salt. Now put into the bottom of a mold some slices of hard-boiled eggs, next a layer of chopped chicken, then more slices of eggs and layers of chicken until the mold is nearly full; boil down the water in which the chicken was boiled until there is about a cupful left, season it well, and pour it over the chicken; it will sink through, forming a jelly around it. Let it stand overnight or all day on the ice. It is to be sliced at table. If there is any fear about the jelly not being stiff enough, a little gelatine may be soaked and added to the cupful of stock. Garnish the dish with light-colored celery leaves, or with fringed celery.

To Fringe Celery for Garnishing.

Cut the stalks into two-inch lengths; stick plenty of coarse needles into the top of a cork; draw half of the stalk of each piece of celery through the needles. When all the fibrous parts are separated, lay the celery in some cold place to curl and crisp.

Chicken Livers.

Chop a little onion, and fry it in butter without allowing it to color; put in the livers and some parsley, and fry or sautÉ them until they are done; take out the livers, add a little hot water or stock to the onions and parsley, thicken it with some flour (roux, page 51); strain, season, and pour it over the livers.

If stale bread is cut into the shape of a small vase or cup, then fried to a good color in boiling lard, it is called a croustade. One of these is often used with chicken livers. Part of the livers are put in the top of the croustade in the centre of the dish, and the remainder are placed around it at the base. The dish is called “croustade of livers.”

Turkish Pilau.

Truss one chicken (two and a half pounds) for boiling, and cut five pounds of shoulder of mutton (boned) into two pieces, which roll into shape; put some trimmings of pork (enough to keep the meat from sticking) into a large saucepan, and when hot place in the chicken and the rolls of mutton, and brown them completely by turning them over the fire. Now make what is called a bouquet, viz.: Put a bay leaf on the table; on this place three or four sprigs of parsley, one sprig of thyme, half of a shallot, four cloves, and one table-spoonful of saffron (five cents’ worth), and tie all together, leaving one end of the string long, to hang over the top of the saucepan for convenience in taking out the bouquet. Put the chicken, the mutton, the bouquet, and a pinch of salt and pepper into three quarts of boiling water; twenty minutes before they are done (it will require a short hour to cook them), put in five ounces of rice (soaked an hour in cold water); when done, take out the bouquet; put the chicken in the centre of a warm platter; cut the mutton into slices or scollops about half an inch thick, and form them in a circle by lapping one over the other around the chicken. Pour the hot soup (freed from grease) over the chicken; or the chicken may be cut into joints (seven pieces), and the circle around the platter may be formed of the chicken pieces and mutton scollops alternating, with the soup poured in the centre.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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