How to Roast a Turkey

Ingredients

• one-half of a stale loaf of baker’s bread
• two well-beaten eggs
• a good pinch of finely powdered sage
• one small onion
• a tablespoonful of butter
• about a half-pint of water
• a pint and a half of cold water
• three hours cooking

Method

1. 1

   Prepare a dressing by cutting stale bread into small pieces and soaking it with warm water.

2. 2

   Add beaten eggs, sage, fried onion, pepper, and salt.

3. 3

   Fry the dressing in butter until golden brown.

4. 4

   Stuff the turkey with the dressing, salt the inside, and sew it up.

5. 5

   Roast in a moderate oven for about 20 minutes per pound, basting with water.

6. 6

   Make gravy from the pan drippings.

As published

This recipe was extracted from The universal cookery book (1887) by Gertrude Strohm, page 24. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

How to Roast a Turkey. While it is drying, prepare a dressing in the fol- lowing manner : If you have no good home-made loaf, take one-half or three-fourths of a stale loaf of baker’s bread, and cut into small pieces, over which pour very scantily warm (not boiling) water ; enough to make the bread light, soft, and still have it flaky, is the desired quantity ; boiling water poured over bread until it is mushy and glutinous will never make good stuffing ; add two well-beaten eggs, a good pinch of finely powdered sage without the stems, one small onion fried a golden brown in but- ter, pepper and salt. Now put into a skillet a table- spoonful of butter, and, when turning a light brown, add the dressing ; leave it to fry a golden brown, then turn and stir until thoroughly heated. Take it off, and fill the turkey, after salting the inside ; do not press the dressing in compactly, but leave room for it to swell. It should have been said at the proper place, to push back the skin from the neck, and cut the latter off close to the body ; stuff the breast from this opening, then turn the skin over on the back, and sew it ; the other vent needs no sew- ing, when the fowl is properly stuffed ; now press the legs up as far as possible toward the breast, and secure firmly to the end of the turkey. With a rub- bing over of salt, it is now ready for the oven, and if roasted in an enclosed pan, there will be no need of basting ; otherwise, with about a half-pint of water to start it, it will need to be basted frequently. The heat of the oven should be moderate at first, but increased afterward ; if it browns too fast, wet a clean 62 TURKEY DRESSED ' WITH OYSTERS. cloth in water, and lay over the turkey ; this can be remoistened occasionally. Allow about twenty min- utes to each pound of meat. When the turkey is taken out, there should be nothing but fat in the pan with which to make gravy ; if there is more than three or four tablespoonfuls, pour it out, as that is sufficient ; into what is left in the pan, put flour enough to absorb it, and let it cook, with constant stirring, until the flour is done ; then add a pint and a half of cold water, and stir constantly until it thickens. To insure good gravy, the fat must on no account be allowed to burn in the bottom of the pan, while the turkey is roasting; arrange the damper to be certain to avoid this. The giblets may be put on in a quart of water, which may be allowed to boil down to a pint ; then chop them, and add either to the dressing or gravy. — Commercial Gazette , Cincin- nati, O. (By per.) Turkey dressed with Oysters. For a ten-pound turkey, take two pints of bread- crumbs, half a teacupful of butter cut in bits (not melted), one teaspoonful of sweet basil, pepper, and salt, and mix thoroughly. Rub the turkey well, inside and out, with salt and pepper ; then fill with first a spoonful of crumbs, then a few well-drained oysters, using half a can for the turkey. Strain the oyster-liquor, and use to baste the turkey. Cook the giblets in the pan, and chop fine in the gravy. A fowl of this size will require three hours cooking

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.