Common-sense papers on cookery

This will make the stuffing that nine persons out of ten really prefer, but do not like to say so. If, therefore, you really wish to have the stuffing mild, the only difference must be, you must cut out the cores of the onions and partially boil them, and let them drain on a napkin ; this takes away considerably the strong onion-flavour of which some persons are not very fond. Fill the goose with the stuffing, and roast it before a quick fire. Care must be taken that the goose is well tied up, to prevent the stuffing coming out at one end, or its getting filled with grease during basting at the other. A good-sized goose only requires one hour and a half to roast, and the general fault is that people will over-roast them, and dry them up. The largest goose I have ever seen would not take more than two hours, but try in the case of a very large one to have the stuffing off the chill before you put it in. Serve some rich brown gravy and apple sauce in a separate tureen, as you will be sure to splash the gravy in carving the goose if any is put on the dish. With regard to roast turkey I can only say that no possible time can be given for roasting, as they Common-sense Cookery. vary so — especially in the present day of plump prize birds — that even the weight would be no criterion. A small turkey will require one hour and a half ; while a very large one may want five hours. One word of caution about the stuffing. Every one knows how unpleasant a tendency what is called veal stuffing has to “rise.” This is, I believe, owing to too much lemon-peel being almost invariably used. When you use a quarter of a pound of beef suet, a quarter of a lemon is amply sufficient. To this quantity may be added a couple of tea-spoonfuls of dried mixed stuffing-herbs (which can be bought in bottles at Covent Garden Market), two ounces of lean ham, rather more than a quarter of a pound of bread-crumbs, two eggs, a little chopped parsley (about a tea-spoonful or rather more), and a little grated nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper. Mince all the ingredients very finely together, and pound them afterwards in a mortar. A very nice stuffing for turkeys can be made from chestnuts, but space will not allow me to enter into further details. In conclusion, let me add, let Christmas come as a blessing, and not as a curse. The demon Alcohol is abroad at this holy season, and many know that they require an archangel’s strength to trample him underfoot. Let the law of each feast be regulated like that of the wise Eastern Christmas Cheer. monarch : “ None did compel.” Let every one on Christmas Eve endeavour to find some case of distress which it is real and not false charity to alleviate. He will doubly enjoy his own dinner who can think that some one but for him would have gone without. It i s such deeds that entitle us to say — “That his bones, When he has run his course, and sleeps in blessings, May have a tomb of orphans’ tears wept on ’em.” CHRISTMAS CHEER.