Stuffing (Tablespoon butter cup soft)

A fragment of a larger preparation — the celery water tells you this stuffing was written to follow a recipe in which celery had already been cooked. Read it as forcemeat for a small bird or for stuffing vegetables rather than as a standalone dish.

• QuantityA very small yield: a quarter cup of crumbs with a tablespoon of butter and one yolk makes only a few spoonfuls, enough for a squab, a few stuffed celery stalks, or one small bird. Scale up substantially for a roasting chicken.
• Celery waterThe cooking liquid from blanched or braised celery, evidently left over from a related celery preparation. Any light vegetable or chicken stock stands in; the point is that the crumbs are moistened with something savoury rather than plain water.
• Soft stale bread crumbsPeriod cookery books distinguish soft crumbs (torn or rubbed from the interior of a day-old loaf) from dried crumbs (baked and rolled). The recipe calls for the soft kind.
• Wrung in cheese-clothThe hinge of the recipe. Soak the crumbs, then twist them hard in cloth so they are damp and not wet. Excess liquid makes the stuffing collapse into paste when the egg yolk sets.
• ButterThe recipe does not specify, but softened butter blends more easily into so small a quantity than cold butter does.
• Order givenButter first, then crumbs, then yolk, as the instruction specifies.
• CookingThe yolk is the only binder, so the stuffing must reach the temperature of whatever it fills. Stuffing inside poultry should register 165F on a thermometer before the bird is served.
• SeasoningNone is given. Salt, pepper and a little of the cooked celery chopped fine are all reasonable additions.