STUFFINGS.
The practice I have just mentioned of putting one sweet
onion and a lump of salt butter inside a chicken, or fowl, before
roasting is to be recommended, for it certainly improves the
flavour of the bird. A turkey, on the other hand, requires an
allowance of carefully made stuffing, and, as you all know,
there are many varieties thereof. Truffles, and chestnuts form
the epicurean stuffings of the roast turkey, and one of oysters
is propounded for the boiled bird. But the stuffing I am
anxious first to discuss is the ordinary one of English
domestic cookery for turkeys, veal, hares, and so on:—a firm,
green-tinted mixture flavoured with pleasant herbs, and a
suspicion of lemon peel; a stuffing which cuts clean with the
slice of the breast of your turkey, or fillet of veal, and is nice
whether hot or cold. For I question whether—if it be well
made—it can be very much improved upon.
Weigh six ounces of dry, well sifted, stale bread crumbs:
measure a dessertspoonful of chopped thyme (green) and one
of marjoram (green), or take a tablespoonful of the dried leaves
powdered—half and half: you must powder and sift the leaves
to get rid of atoms of stalk and stick: mince the parsley
fine to the extent of a heaped-up tablespoonful: chop up three
ounces of fresh beef suet and the very finely pared zest of half a
lemon: mix these together with a wooden spoon in a large bowl
and dust the whole well with salt and mignonette pepper;
lastly, binding the mixture with two well-beaten eggs: work
well together, and the stuffing will be fit to use.
Much depends upon the fine mincing of all the ingredients,
and their thorough incorporation: the suet should be chopped
as finely as possible. The eggs cause cohesion and firmness,
and are therefore actually essential. The colour will be,
of course, a pale green, provided you use the quantities of
green herbs I have given: supposing, however, that you have
only dried herbs, and that you cannot get fresh parsley, why not
secure the colour by the addition of a very little spinach-green-
ing?—it is almost tasteless, and the colour is a great thing in
stuffing. This, carefully made, is the best ordinary veal, hare,
or turkey stuffing, for domestic use.
In mincing parsley, and all green herbs, be careful that, after
scalding them well, the leaves are well dried in a cloth: if
chopped wet, the juice escapes, and the mince is never finely
and evenly granulated.
Stuffings are, of course, added to, and perhaps improved, by
chopped ham, tongue, liver, cooked mushrooms, bacon, a little
anchovy, a casual oyster, and, of course, by fresh truffles. It is
quite common, for instance, to mix the chopped liver of a hare
in the stuffing, but this robs you of the opportunity of making
liver sauce, which goes well with the red currant jelly. Sausage
meat is also often used for turkey and galantine stuffing:—two
parts sausage meat to one of bread crumbs soaked in stock,
powdered sweet herbs, salt, parsley, and two or three eggs to
bring the mixture to the right consistency.
The mixture which tradition has handed down to us from
the old-fashioned kitchen for the stuffing of ducks and geese is
by no means to be as highly commended as that for turkey
which we have just discussed. Its characteristics may be
summed up briefly as follows:—violent onion, crude sage,
and slices of half-boiled potato, mixed together lumpily and
lubricated with some chopped suet. Let me speedily explain
that the crude taste we dislike so much arises from the sage
being chopped raw, and the onions being used without sufficient
softening by blanching and boiling. Then no stuffing or force-
meat looks tempting unless it is firm.
Duck stuffing should be made in this manner:—
Blanch four onions in scalding water for five minutes—a
necessary process to extract the acrid flavour. Drain off the
water, and replenish the vessel anew; when this water boils
put in the blanched onions, boil, and then simmer till tender.
Whilst these are boiling, take eight tender-looking sage leaves,
and scald them in boiling water for five minutes, take them
out, dry them, and when the onions are tender, turn them out,
drain them dry, and proceed to mince them with the sage
leaves, very finely. Add to this six ounces of bread crumbs, and
dust over the mixture a liberal allowance of spiced pepper
(which I give later on) and salt: when nicely worked together
add two ounces of fresh beef suet cut into dice, and bind the
ingredients with two eggs; it will now be ready for use. The
proportions of this stuffing may be relied on: it is mild, yet
pleasantly flavoured, and quite firm when cut. This recipe
will be found enough for a pair of ducks. Ducklings, as a rule,
are not stuffed, but in the menus a French method is given
that may sometimes be tried.
Goose stuffing is made in a similar way, and the composition
is a pleasant addition to some joints of pork, especially so, I
think, with a loin, which should be boned, rolled, stuffed with
it, and roasted over a bright fire.