Boil the inwards tender, chop them fine, put double quantity of grated bread, 4 ounces butter, pepper, salt, (and sweet herbs if you like) 2 eggs moulded into the stuffing, parboil 4 onions and chop them into the stuffing, add wine, and roast the bird. The above is a good stuffing for every kind of Water Fowl, which requires onion sauce.
Take a breast of veal, cut off both the ends, and half roast it; then put it into a stew-pan, with a quart of brown gravy, a spoonful of mushroom-powder, a blade or two of mace, and lemon-peel; so let it stew over a slow fire whilst your veal is enough; then put in two or three shred mushrooms or oysters, two or three spoonfuls of white wine; thicken up your sauce with flour and butter; you may lay round your veal some stew'd morels and truffles; if you have none, some pallets stew'd in gravy, with artichoke-bottoms cut in quarters, dipt in eggs and fry'd, and some forc'd-meat-balls; you may fry the sweet-bread cut in pieces, and lay over the veal, or fry'd oysters; when you fry your oysters you must dip them in egg and flour mixed. Garnish your dish with lemon and pickles.
Score the skin in strips about a quarter of an inch apart; place it in a dripping-pan with a very little water under it; cook it moderately at first, as a high heat hardens the rind before the meat is heated through. If it is very lean, it should be rubbed with fresh lard or butter when put into the pan. A stuffing might be made of bread crumbs, chopped sage and onions, pepper and salt, and baked separately on a pie dish; this method is better than putting it in the meat, as many persons have a great aversion to its flavor. A loin weighing about six pounds will roast in two hours; allow more time if it should be very fat. Make a gravy with flour stirred into the pork drippings. Serve with apple sauce and pickles.
Take a pint of oysters and chop them, put in a few bread-crumbs, a little pepper, shred mace, and an onion, mix them all together, and stuff your mutton on both sides, then roast it at a slow fire, and baste it with nothing but butter; put into the dripping-pan a little water, two or three spoonfuls of the pickle of oysters, a glass of claret, an onion shred small, and an anchovy; if your liquor waste before your mutton is enough, put in a little more water; when the meat is enough, take up the gravy, skim off the fat, and thicken it with flour and butter; then serve it up. Garnish your dish with horse-radish and pickles.
Wipe pork with damp cloth. Put into pan in very hot oven for 20 minutes, or until well browned; add 1 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper and 1 cup cold water. Roast slowly 3 to 4 hours. Add water as necessary. To gravy, add 1 tablespoon flour mixed with cold water, season and boil until thick.
Having drawn and singed the goose, wipe out the inside with a cloth, and sprinkle in some pepper and salt. Make a stuffing of four good sized onions minced fine, and half their quantity of green sage leaves minced also, a large tea-cupful of grated bread- crumbs, a piece of butter the size of a walnut, and the beaten yolks of two eggs, with a little pepper and salt. Mix the whole together, and incorporate them well. Put the stuffing into the goose, and press it in hard; but do not entirely fill up the cavity, as the mixture will swell in cooking. Tie the goose securely round with a greased or wetted string; and paper the breast to prevent it from scorching. Fasten the goose on the spit at both ends. The fire must be brisk and well kept up. It will require from two hours to two and a half to roast. Baste it at first with a little salt and water, and then with its own gravy. Take off the paper when the goose is about half done, and dredge it with a little flour towards the last. Having parboiled the liver and heart, chop them and put them into the gravy, which must be skimmed well and thickened with a little browned flour. Send apple-sauce to table with the goose; also mashed potatoes. A goose may be stuffed entirely with potatoes, boiled and mashed with milk, butter, pepper and salt. You may make a gravy of the giblets, that is the neck, pinions, liver, heart and gizzard, stewed in a little water, thickened with butter rolled in flour, and seasoned with pepper and salt. Add a glass of red wine. Before you send it to table, take out all but the liver and heart; mince them and leave them in the gravy. This gravy is by many preferred to that which comes from the goose in roasting. It is well to have both. If a goose is old it is useless to cook it, as when hard and tough it cannot be eaten.
Wipe it all over with a sponge dipped in warm water Then rub the skin with lard or nice dripping. Cover the fat with sheets of paper two double, buttered, and tied on with packthread that has been soaked to keep it from burning. Or, what is still better, you may cover the first sheets of paper with a coarse paste of flour and water rolled out half an inch thick, and then cover the paste with the second sheets of paper, securing the whole well with the string to prevent its falling off. Place the venison on the spit before a strong clear fire, such as you would have for a sirloin of beef, and let the fire be well kept up all the time. Put some claret and butter into the dripping-pan and baste the meat with it frequently. If wrapped in paste, it will not be done in less than five hours. Half an hour before you take it up, remove the coverings carefully, place the meat nearer to the fire, baste it with fresh butter and dredge it very lightly with flour. Send it to table with fringed white paper wrapped round the bone, and its own gravy well skimmed. Have currant jelly to eat with it. As venison chills immediately, the plates should be kept on heaters. You may make another gravy with a pound and a half of scraps and trimmings or inferior pieces of venison, put into a sauce-pan with three pints of water, a few cloves, a few blades of mace, half a nutmeg; and salt and cayenne to your taste. Boil it down slowly to a pint. Then skim off the fat, and strain the gravy into a clean sauce-pan. Add to it half a pint of currant jelly, half a pint of claret, and near a quarter of a pound of butter divided into bits and rolled in flour. Send it to table in two small tureens or sauce-boats. This gravy will be found very fine. Venison should never be roasted unless very fat. The shoulder is a roasting piece, and may be done without the paper or paste. Venison is best when quite fresh; but if it is expedient to keep it a week before you cook it, wash it well with milk and water, and then dry it perfectly with cloths till there is not the least damp remaining on it. Then mix together powdered ginger and pepper, and rub it well over every part of the meat. Do not, however, attempt to keep it unless the weather is quite cold.
Clean the chicken, and stuff the breast and part of the body with dressing made as follows: For a pair of chickens weighing between seven and eight pounds, take one quart of stale bread (being sure not to have any hard pieces), and break up in very fine crumbs. Add a table-spoonful of salt, a scant teaspoonful of pepper, a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, half a teaspoonful of powdered sage, one of summer savory and a scant half cupful of butter. Mix well together. This gives a rich dressing that will separate like rice when served. Now truss the chickens, and dredge well with salt. Take soft butter in the hand, and rub thickly over the chicken; then dredge rather thickly with flour. Place on the side, on the meat rack, and put into a hot oven for a few moments, that the flour in the bottom of the pan may brown. When it is browned, put in water enough to cover the pan. Baste every fifteen minutes with the gravy in the pan, and dredge with salt, pepper and flour. When one side is browned, turn, and brown the other. The last position in which the chicken should bake is on its back, that the breast may be nicely frothed and browned. The last basting is on the breast, and should be done with soft butter, and the breast should be dredged with flour. Putting the butter on the chicken at first, and then covering with flour, makes a paste, which keeps the juices in the chicken, and also supplies a certain amount of rich basting that is absorbed into the meat. It really does not take as much butter to baste poultry or game in this manner as by the old method of putting it on with a spoon after the bird began to cook. The water in the pan must often be renewed; and always be careful not to get in too much at a time. It will take an hour and a quarter to cook a pair of chickens, each weighing between three and a half and four pounds; anything larger, an hour and a half. A sure sign that they are done is the readiness of joints to separate from the body. If the chickens are roasted in the tin-kitchen, before the fire, it will take a quarter of an hour longer than in the oven. Gravy for chickens: Wash the hearts, livers, gizzards and necks and put on to boil in three pints of water; boil down to one pint. Take them all up. Put the liver on a plate, and mash fine with the back of the spoon; return it to the water in which it was boiled. Mix two table-spoonfuls of flour with half a cupful of cold water. Stir into the gravy, season well with salt and pepper, and set back where it will simmer, for twenty minutes. Take up the chickens, and take the meat rack out of the pan. Then tip the pan to one side, to bring all the gravy together. Skim off the fat. Place the pan on top of the stove and turn into it one cupful of water. Let this boil up, in the meantime scraping everything from the sides and bottom of the pan. Turn this into the made gravy, and let it all boil together while you are removing the skewers and strings from the chickens.
The carver in cutting a ham must be guided according as he desires to practice economy, or have at once fine slices out of the prime part. Under the first supposition, he will commence at the knuckle end, and cut off thin slices toward the thick and upper part of the ham. To reach the choicer portion of the ham, the knife, which must be very sharp and thin, should be carried quite down to the bone through the thick fat in the direction of the line from 1 to 2. The slices should be even and thin, cutting both lean and fat together, always cutting down to the bone. Some cut a circular hole in the middle of a ham gradually enlarging it outwardly. Then again many carve a ham by first cutting from 1 to 2, then across the other way from 3 to 4. Remove the skin after the ham is cooked and send to the table with dots of dry pepper or dry mustard on the top, a tuft of fringed paper twisted about the knuckle, and plenty of fresh parsley around the dish. This will always insure an inviting appearance. Roast Pig.--The modern way of serving a pig is not to send it to the table whole, but have it carved partially by the cook; first, by dividing the shoulder from the body; then the leg in the same manner; also separating the ribs into convenient portions. The head may be divided and placed on the same platter. To be served as hot as possible. A Spare Rib of Pork is carved by cutting slices from the fleshy part, after which the bones should be disjointed and separated. A leg of pork may be carved in the same manner as a ham.
Take a breast of veal, half roast it, then put it into a stew-pan, with three pints of brown gravy; season your veal with nutmeg, pepper and salt; when your veal is stew'd enough, you may put in a pint of green peas boil'd. Take six middling cucumbers, pare and cut them in quarters long way, also two cabbage-lettices, and stew them in brown gravy; so lay them round your veal when you dish it up, with a few forc'd-meat-balls and some slices of bacon. Garnish your dish with pickles, mushrooms, oysters and lemons.
