Turkey & Stuffing

These recipes from Godey's Lady's Book Receipts and Household Hints ©1870

To Bake A Fowl.—Prepare a fowl as for roasting ; have the oven of good but not a raging heat. Lay the fowl on skewers; baste every five minutes, aud manage the same as the roast. If young, it will bake in one hour.

To Roast A Turkey.—Proceed as directed in roast fowls; allow from two and a half to three hours for a good-sized tender turkey. The dressings of fowls can be varied by using oysters, etc.

To Bake A Turkey.—Follow the directions for baking fowls, and allow from two to two and a half hours steady baking for a common-sized young turkey; serve with a browned gravy. All roast fowls should be served with dressed vegetables, currant, grape, or cranberry jelly, and a baked pudding or pie.

Stuffing For A Turkey.—Take some bread crumbs and turn on just enough hot water to soften them ; put in a piece of butter, not melted, the size of a hen's egg, and a spoonful of pulverized sage, a teaspoonful of ground pepper, and a teaspoonful of salt; there may be some of the bread crumbs that need to be chopped ; then mix thoroughly and stuff your turkey.

Baked Turkey.—Let the turkey be picked, singed, and washed and wiped dry, inside and out; joint only to the first joints in the legs, and cut some of the neck off if it is all bloody; then cut one dozen small gashes in the fleshy parts of the turkey, on the outside and in different parts of the turkey, and press one whole oyster in each gash; then close the skin and flesh over each oyster as tightly as possible; then stuff your turkey, leaving a little room for the stuffing to swell. When stuffed sew it up with a stout cord, rub over lightly with flour, sprinkle a little salt and pepper on it, put some water in your dripping pan, put in your turkey, baste it often with its own drippings; bake to a nice brown ; thicken your gravy with a little flour and water. Be sure and keep the bottom of the dripping pan covered with water, or it will burn the gravy and make it bitter.