The home cook book

Now take your turkey, which has been washed in a little clear water and wiped dry, and fill the hole at the neck where the crop came out, and also the whole body of the turkey. Sew up the slits, using a large needle made for such purposes, or a large darning needle. Wind a clean white cord about the body to hold it in shape, and push up the legs close and high against the body. Press the neck gently down into and under the back. Rub the turkey over with butter, dredge it with salt and flour, set it in a dripping-pan, pour into the pan a pint of boiling water, and push it in a hot oven. With the liquor in the pan baste the turkey every fifteen minutes. Let it cook two hours and a half to three hours. The heat of the oven should be greater the first hour of the cooking. When the bird is cooked set it on a hot platter, and with the liquor which remains in the pan, seasoned as it is b}' the stuffing that has oozed out during the cooking and the juices of the meat, make a gravy by thickening with flour. Put the gravy in a separate dish. If the water cooks out of the pan during the roasting, add more water, always boiling hot. A turkey may be stuffed with forcemeats given on page 137- Oysters stuff turkeys admirably. They should be well seasoned before being put in. Again, chestnuts boiled, peeled and mashed with butter make a good stuffing. In the South boiled sweet potatoes mashed with butter have been used. But the best all-round forcemeat is that of breadcrumbs seasoned and mixed with minced giblets. It is an old-fashioned country notion that a turkey gains in sweetness by being frosted after it is ready for stuffing, and in New England and the North generally it used to be the custom to prepare the bird the day before it was to be eaten — at Thanksgiving and Christmas — and hang it outdoors to be stiffened by the freezing air. TURKEY DRESSING A nine-pound turkey will require nearly two baker's loaves of bread for dressing. Cut off the crust from the four sides of the loaf. Crumble it coarse. Season with salt and pepper, being careful of the salt, as there is salt in the bread. Season high. Add one large beaten egg, and one heaping tablespoon of melted butter. Mix lightly with the hands. Add thyme for further seasoning. Thyme that comes in packages is better than that prepared in bottles. After the turkey is drawn, and the lights taken out and wiped dry, put in the dressing lightly by the handful without squeezing the bread. The opening should then be covered with pieces of the crust from the bread to keep the dressing dry. Fasten the opening together with skewers which come for thus purpose or sew it up. When the turkey is served take away the pieces of bread, and the dressing will be light and moist. No water should ever be used in this dressing. Water makes it soggy. All the moistening required will be found in the egg and melted butter. Turkey gravy should be thickened with browned flour, mixed in cold water: for a pint of gravy two heaping tablespoons of lightly browned flour mixed with water and made rather thick and smooth. Boil until the gravy thickens, and no more. Strain through a tin strainer or a tin skimmer. DUCK, PORK, AND OTHER DRESSINGS