Take a pint of oysters and heat them in their own liquor long enough to come to a boil, or until they begin to ruffle. Skim out the oysters into a warm dish, put into the liquor a teacup of milk or cream, two tablespoonfuls of cold butter, a pinch of cayenne and salt; thicken with a tablespoonful of flour stirred to a paste, boil up and then add the oysters. Oyster sauce is used for fish, boiled turkey, chickens and boiled white meats of most kinds.
For an eight or ten pound turkey, cut the brown crust from slices or pieces of stale bread until you have as much as the inside of a pound loaf; put it into a suitable dish and pour tepid water (not warm, for that makes it heavy) over it; let it stand one minute, as it soaks very quickly. Now take up a handful at a time and squeeze it hard and dry with both hands, placing it, as you go along, in another dish; this process makes it very light. When all is pressed dry, toss it all up lightly through your fingers; now add pepper, salt--about a teaspoonful--also a teaspoonful of powdered summer savory, the same amount of sage, or the green herb minced fine; add half a cup of melted butter, and a beaten egg, or not. Work thoroughly all together, and it is ready for dressing either fowls, fish or meats. A little chopped sausage in turkey dressing is considered by some an improvement, when well incorporated with the other ingredients. For geese and ducks the stuffing may be made the same as for turkey, with the addition of a few slices of onion chopped fine.
When your turkey is dress'd and drawn, truss her, cut off her feet, take down the breast-bone with a knife, and sew up the skin again; stuff the breast with a white stuffing. How to make the Stuffing. Take the sweet-bread of veal, boil it, shred it fine, with a little beef-suet, a handful of bread-crumbs, a little lemon-peel, part of the liver, a spoonful or two of cream, with nutmeg, pepper, salt, and two eggs, mix all together, and stuff your turkey with part of the stuffing, (the rest you may either boil or fry to lay round it) dridge it with a little flour, tie it up in a cloth, and boil it with milk and water: If it be a young turkey an hour will boil it. How to make Sauce for the Turkey. Take a little small white gravy, a pint of oysters, two or three spoonfuls of cream, a little juice of lemon, and salt to your taste, thicken it up with flour and butter, then pour it over your turkey, and serve it up; lay round your turkey fry'd oysters, and the forc'd-meat. Garnish your dish with oysters, mushrooms, and slices of lemon.
Take the flesh of a washed Capon or Turkey cold, mince it so small as you can, then grate or scrape among the flesh two or three ounces of Parmasants or old Holland Cheese, season it with beaten Cloves, Nutmeg, Mace, and Salt, then take the bottoms and tops of foure or five new Rowles, dry them before the fire, or in an Oven, then put them into a faire silver Dish set it upon the fire, wet your bread in a Ladle full of strong Broth, and a Ladle-full of Gravy of Mutton then strow on your minced meat all of an equall thicknesse in each place, then stick twelve or eighteen peices of Marrow as bigge as Walnuts, and pour on an handfull of pure Gravy of Mutton then cover your Dish close, and as it stews adde now and then some Gravy of Mutton there to, thrust your Knife sometimes to the bottome, to keep the bread from sticking to the Dish, let it so stew stil, till you are ready to Dish it away, and when you serve it, if need require, ad more Gravy of Mutton, wring the juyce of two or three Oranges, wipe your Dishes brims, and serve it to the Table in the same Dish.
The fowls for this purpose should be young and fine. You may either boil or roast them. They must be quite cold. Having removed all the skin and fat, and disjointed the fowls cut the meat from the bones into very small pieces, not exceeding an inch. Wash and split two large fine heads of celery, and cut the white part into pieces also about an inch long; and having mixed the chicken and celery together, put them into a deep china dish, cover it and set it away. It is best not to prepare the dressing till just before the salad is to be eaten, that it may be as fresh as possible. Have ready the yolks of eight hard-boiled eggs. Put them into a flat dish, and mash them to a paste with the back of a wooden spoon. Add to the egg a small tea-spoonful of fine salt, the same quantity of cayenne pepper, half a jill of made mustard, a jill or a wine-glass and a half of vinegar, and rather more than two wine-glasses of sweet oil. Mix all these ingredients thoroughly; stirring them a long time till they are quite smooth. The dressing should not be put on till a few minutes before the salad is sent in; as by lying in it the chicken and celery will become tough and hard. After you pour it on, mix the whole well together with a silver fork. Chicken salad should be accompanied with plates of bread and butter, and a plate of crackers. It is a supper dish, and is brought in with terrapin, oysters, &c. Cold turkey is excellent prepared as above. An inferior salad may be made with cold fillet of veal, instead of chickens. Cold boiled lobster is very fine cut up and drest in this manner, only substituting for celery, lettuce cut up and mixed with the lobster.
Take half a dozen pigeons; stuff each one with a dressing the same as for turkey; loosen the joints with a knife, but do not separate them. Put them in a stewpan with water enough to cover them, let them cook until nearly tender, then season them with salt and pepper and butter. Thicken the gravy with flour, remove and cool. Butter a pudding dish, line the sides with a rich crust. Have ready some hard-boiled eggs cut in slices. Put in a layer of egg and birds and gravy until the dish is full. Cover with a crust and bake.
Season pieces of cold chicken or turkey with salt and pepper. Dip in melted butter; let this cool on the meat, and dip in beaten egg and in fine bread crumbs. Fry in butter till a delicate brown. Serve on slices of hot toast, with either a white or curry sauce poured around. Pieces of cold veal make a nice dish, if prepared in this manner.
Clean the fowl as usual. With a sharp and pointed knife, begin at the extremity of the wing, and pass the knife down close to the bone, cutting all the flesh from the bone, and preserving the skin whole; run the knife down each side of the breast bone and up the legs, keeping close to the bone; then split the back half way up, and draw out the bones; fill the places whence the bones were taken with a stuffing, restoring the fowl to its natural form, and sew up all the incisions made in the skin. Lard with two or three rows of slips of fat bacon on the top, basting often with salt and water, and a little butter. Some like a glass of port wine in the gravy. This is a difficult dish to attempt by any but skillful hands. Carve across in slices, and serve with tomato sauce.
Take a piece of ham fat, one finger high and four fingers wide, chop up fine with a piece of onion, piece of celery, piece of carrot, and put into a saucepan. Take three-quarters of a pound of meat, either lamb, veal, beef, or fresh pork, cut it into several pieces, salt and pepper it, and put a pinch of allspice, then put it into the saucepan; cook it until it is well colored, then add two tablespoons of red or white wine. When it is absorbed add one tablespoon of tomato paste, dissolved in water, or tomato sauce of fresh tomatoes (receipt Tomato Sauce No. 1). Cook over a moderate fire, one hour longer if the meat is veal or lamb, and one and one-half hours to two hours for pork or beef, adding water if necessary.
This meat can be served with Ribbon Macaroni. Put the meat in the middle, the macaroni around it, and the sauce over all, adding two tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese to the macaroni after it is boiled, and mixing well before putting it on the platter. Sprinkle on a little more cheese before carrying to the table.
This dish can be made equally well with left-over meats of any kind, turkey being especially good served this way.
Take a cold roast-beef bone, pieces of beefsteak, the rack of a cold turkey or chicken. Put them into a pot with three or four quarts of water, two carrots, three turnips, one onion, a few cloves, pepper and salt. Boil the whole gently four hours; then strain it through a colander, mashing the vegetables so that they will all pass through. Skim off the fat, and return the soup to the pot. Mix one tablespoonful of flour with two of water, stir it into the soup and boil the whole ten minutes. Serve this soup with sippits of toast. Sippits are bits of dry toast cut into a triangular form. A seasonable dish about the holidays.
