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Stuffing II
1 cup cracker crumbs 1/4 cup melted butter Sage or Poultry Seasoning Salt Pepper 1 cup scalded milk Make same as Stuffing I.
A wet cracker stuffing of the plainest New England type, given as a variation on the book's first stuffing recipe. The proportions are the whole of it: equal volumes of crumbs and hot milk make a soft, spoonable dressing rather than a crumbly one.
- Which crackersThe recipe does not specify; plain soda crackers or the thick New England common cracker, crushed fine, are the likely intention rather than sweet crackers or seasoned crumbs. Modern saltines may be saltier than what the cook had to hand, so season at the end and taste before adding any.
- Scalded milkScalding once served to check the souring of raw milk; with pasteurised milk it simply matters that the milk is hot, which swells the crumbs quickly and evenly. Heat to just below a simmer, when a rim of bubbles forms at the edge.
- Butter measureA quarter cup of melted butter is 4 tablespoons, about 57 g. Pour it over the dry crumbs before the milk so the crumbs are coated and do not turn to paste.
- Seasoning amountsNone are given. For this quantity, start with 1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning or 1/4 teaspoon dried rubbed sage, 1/2 teaspoon salt and a good grind of pepper. Poultry seasoning blends of the period generally leaned on sage, usually with thyme and marjoram, though the mixtures varied.
- TextureA full cup of milk to a cup of crumbs gives a very moist mixture. If you want a dressing that holds its shape, add the milk by degrees and stop when the crumbs are damp through but not swimming.
- YieldRoughly a cup and a half once the crumbs have taken up the milk — enough for a small bird. Scale the quantities up for a larger fowl or a turkey.
- Cooking itStuffing packed inside a bird must reach 165F/74C at the centre, and a wet mixture like this heats slowly. Fill loosely, check with a thermometer, or bake it in a buttered dish alongside for 30 to 40 minutes at 350F.
Cracker stuffings ran parallel to bread stuffings in American cookbooks from the mid-nineteenth century onward, and for a practical reason: crackers kept far better than bread, so crumbs were always to hand when a bird was killed. New England cooks in particular favoured the sturdy common cracker, which swells rather than dissolves in hot liquid, and the same crumbs went into oyster stuffing, scalloped dishes and fish balls. Commercially blended "poultry seasoning" of the kind the recipe permits as an alternative to loose sage was already on sale in this period.