Pick and draw them, wash out well in two or three waters, adding a little soda to the last but one to sweeten it, if there is doubt as to its being fresh. Dry it well with a clean cloth, and fill the crop and body with a stuffing the same as "Dressing for Fowls." Lay it in a dripping-pan; put a pint of hot water and a piece of butter in the dripping-pan, add to it a small tablespoonful of salt, and a small teaspoonful of pepper; baste frequently, and let it roast quickly, without scorching; when nearly done, put a piece of butter the size of a large egg to the water in the pan; when it melts, baste with it, dredge a little flour over, baste again, and let it finish; half an hour will roast a full grown chicken, if the fire is right. When done, take it up. Having stewed the necks, gizzards, livers and hearts in a very little water, strain it and mix it hot with the gravy that has dripped from the fowls, and which must be first skimmed. Thicken it with a little browned flour, add to it the livers, hearts and gizzards chopped small. Or, put the giblets in the pan with the chicken and let them roast. Send the fowls to the table with the gravy in a boat. Cranberry sauce should accompany them, or any tart sauce.
Take a piece of veal suitable for roasting, and put it in vinegar for twenty-four hours. Roast it with butter, pepper and salt, with a few slices of onion. Baste it well, and when it is finished crush the onions in the gravy and add some cream. Mix together with flour so as to thicken. [Mdlle. Spreakers.]
Remove from the bones all the meat of either cold roast or boiled fowls. Clean it from the skin, and keep covered from the air until ready for use. Boil the bones and skin with three-fourths of a pint of water until reduced quite half. Strain the gravy and let it cool. Next, having skimmed off the fat, put it into a clean saucepan with half a cup of cream, three tablespoonfuls of butter, well mixed with a tablespoonful of flour. Keep these stirred until they boil. Then put in the fowl finely minced, with three hard-boiled eggs, chopped, and sufficient salt and pepper to season. Shake the mince over the fire until just ready to serve. Dish it over hot toast and serve.
Take some cold roast beef that has been under-done, and mince it very fine. Mix with it grated bread crumbs, and a little chopped onion and parsley. Season it with pepper and salt, and moisten it with some beef-dripping and a little walnut or onion pickle. Some scraped cold tongue or ham will be found an improvement. Make it into broad flat cakes, and spread a coat of mashed potato thinly on the top and bottom of each. Lay a small bit of butter on the top of every cake, and set them in an oven to warm and brown. Beef cakes are frequently a breakfast dish. Any other cold fresh meat may be prepared in the same manner. Cold roast beef may be cut into slices, seasoned with salt and pepper, broiled a few minutes over a clear fire, and served up hot with a little butter spread on them.
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.
Sift the flour and salt into a basin, mash the potatoes or rub them through a sieve, and stir them in. Shred the suet finely and mix in thoroughly with a knife; make into rather a stiff paste with the water, dip a pudding cloth into boiling water. Put the pudding into the centre, and tie up tightly. Plunge into boiling water and boil steadily for two hours; turn out of the cloth carefully into a hot dish, and serve. This pudding is delicious with roast meat, or it may be served as a sweet; jam sauce is nice poured round it. A recipe for this will be found elsewhere.
Take a breast of mutton, bone it, and season it with nutmeg, pepper and salt; roll it up tight with coarse incle and roast it upon a spit; when it is enough lay it whole upon the dish. Then take four or six cucumbers, pare them and cut them in slices, not very thin; likewise cut three or four in quarters length way, stew them in a little brown gravy and a little whole pepper; when they are enough thicken them with flour and butter the thickness of cream; so serve it up. Garnish your dish with horse-radish.
With roast beef: tomato sauce, grated horse-radish, mustard, cranberry sauce, pickles. With roast pork: apple sauce, cranberry sauce. With roast veal: tomato sauce, mushroom sauce, onion sauce and cranberry sauce. Horse-radish and lemons are good. With roast mutton: currant jelly, caper sauce. With boiled mutton: onion sauce, caper sauce. With boiled fowls: bread sauce, onion sauce, lemon sauce, cranberry sauce, jellies. Also cream sauce. With roast lamb: mint sauce. With roast turkey: cranberry sauce, currant jelly. With boiled turkey: oyster sauce. With venison or wild ducks: cranberry sauce, currant jelly, or currant jelly warmed with port wine. With roast goose: apple sauce, cranberry sauce, grape or currant jelly. With boiled fresh mackerel: stewed gooseberries. With boiled blue fish: white cream sauce, lemon sauce. With broiled shad: mushroom sauce, parsley or egg sauce. With fresh salmon: green peas, cream sauce. Pickles are good with all roast meats, and in fact are suitable accompaniments to all kinds of meats in general. Spinach is the proper accompaniment to veal; green peas to lamb. Lemon juice makes a very grateful addition to nearly all the insipid members of the fish kingdom. Slices of lemon cut into very small dice and stirred into drawn butter and allowed to come to the boiling point, served with fowls, is a fine accompaniment.
Take two or more chickens, half-roast them, cut them up as you would do for eating, and skin them; put them into a stew-pan with a little white gravy, juice of lemon, two anchovies, shred mace and nutmeg, then boil it; take the yolks of three eggs, a little sweet cream and shred parsley, put them into your stew-pan with a lump of butter and a little salt; shake them all the while they are over the stove, and be sure you do not let them boil lest they should curdle. Garnish your dish with sippets and lemon.
Make a very strong infusion of pure coffee that has been roasted a high colour. It will be found best to re-roast coffee berries in the oven if you have not got a proper coffee-roaster. Pound the berries in a pestle and mortar, or grind them very coarsely; then make a strong infusion with a very small quantity of water, and strain it till it is quite bright. This is mixed with the whipped sweetened cream.
