Roast Poultry
After poultry is cleaned and washed inside and out with cold water, fill inside with dressing. Have at least a yard fine twine in trussing needle. Turn wings across back so that pinions touch. Run needle through thick part of wing under bone, through body and wing on other side; return in same way, but passing needle in over bone, tie firmly, leaving several inches of twine. Press legs up against body, run needle through thigh, body and second thigh, return, going round bone in same way; tie firmly. Run needle through ends of legs, return, passing needle through rump; if opening is badly torn, one or two stitches may be needed; or if steel skewers are used put one through wings of fowl and other through opposite thigh. Then wind twine in figure eight from one handle of skewer to other. Rub all over with soft butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place on rack in roasting pan and put into very hot oven. Make basting mixture with 1/2 cup each of butter and water; keep hot and baste every 10 or 15 minutes. Roast 3 hours for 8 pound turkey, 1 to 2 hours for chicken and ducks. Keep oven very hot. If bird is very large and heavy, cover breasts and legs with several thicknesses of paper to keep from burning.
A trussing-and-roasting method from the era before oven thermometers, written for cooks who owned a trussing needle and expected to baste all afternoon. The technique holds up; the temperatures and doneness cues need translating.
- "Very hot oven"Period oven tables are not consistent, but "very hot" is generally reckoned at somewhere around 450-500F. Modern practice is to start a bird at 450F for 20-30 minutes to set the skin, then drop to 325-350F for the remainder, which gives the same browning without drying the breast.
- Cook to temperature, not to the clockRoast to 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone. An unstuffed 8 lb turkey generally takes about 2 3/4 to 3 hours at 325F; a 4-5 lb chicken roughly 1 1/2 to 2 hours. The recipe's flat three hours at very high heat is a rough guide at best.
- If you stuff the birdThe dressing must itself reach 165F, and it heats more slowly than the meat. Stuff loosely, check the center of the dressing with a probe, and expect the bird to take longer than the same weight roasted empty. Cooking the dressing in a separate dish sidesteps the problem entirely.
- Trussing threadA yard of fine twine and a trussing needle are still the neatest way to do this, but plain kitchen twine tied around the legs and a second loop around the wings achieves nearly the same compact shape. Do not use anything synthetic or coated.
- The basting mixtureHalf a cup each of butter and water, kept hot and brushed on every 10 to 15 minutes. Every opening of the oven door costs heat, so 20-minute intervals are more practical; the water presumably helps keep the butter from scorching in the pan, though the recipe does not say.
- Paper on the breastThe "several thicknesses of paper" was most likely greased brown paper or something similar, though the recipe does not specify. Foil, loosely tented, does the same job. Remove it for the last 20 minutes so the skin crisps.
- Rest before carvingThe original says nothing about resting. Give the bird 15 to 20 minutes under loose foil before carving; the juices redistribute and the legs carve cleanly.
- YieldReckon about 1 lb of uncooked bird per person for turkey and 3/4 lb for chicken; duck, being bonier, wants nearer 1 to 1 1/2 lb a head. The 8 lb turkey serves about eight.
Trussing instructions this detailed were a standard feature of American cookbooks from the 1880s through the 1920s, when poultry generally arrived whole and unbrushed from a butcher or a farmyard rather than trimmed and trussed in plastic. The point of the needlework was practical: a bird with its wings pinned across the back and legs pressed to the body holds its shape, cooks more evenly, and does not splay open and dry out. The recipe groups turkey, chicken and duck under one set of directions, with the cook expected to judge the difference. The "several thicknesses of paper" is a reminder of how recently aluminium foil arrived in home kitchens; greased paper had done the shielding job for generations. And the constant basting belongs to an age of unreliable oven heat, when a cook stayed near the range for the whole roast.