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Common Stuffing, or Forcemeat
332. Take three or four ounces of suet, with an equal quantity of veal (or if for turkeys, chopped oysters), two ounces of finely-grated bread, chop these up with parsley already minced very finely, and flavour with a little lemon-pcel, nutmeg, or mace, white pepper and salt (lemon-thyme or sweet marjoram are thought an improvement by some). Then blend all with the yolks of two or three eggs well beaten.
A basic English forcemeat: fat, lean meat, breadcrumbs and egg, seasoned and used to stuff poultry or veal, or rolled into balls and cooked alongside. The proportions here make roughly enough for a large chicken or a small turkey.
- SuetBeef suet, the hard kidney fat, sold shredded in packets or from a butcher. It gives the mixture its richness and keeps it from setting hard; butter is not a substitute, though a fatty minced pork will do the same job.
- VealThree to four ounces of lean veal, finely chopped or minced. Pork shoulder or the meat from a chicken thigh gives a comparable texture if veal is hard to find.
- WeightsThree to four ounces is about 85-115 g; two ounces of grated bread is about 55 g, or roughly a cup of loose fresh crumbs. Use stale bread grated on a box grater, not dried crumbs, which drink up too much egg.
- The oystersFor turkey the veal is replaced by an equal weight of chopped oysters. Chop them coarsely and add their liquor sparingly; drained oysters keep the mixture from going wet and slack.
- Lemon peelThe zest only, with none of the white pith. About a teaspoon of finely grated zest is enough for this quantity.
- BindingTwo yolks will bind this amount; three makes a softer, richer forcemeat that is better spooned into a bird than rolled into balls. Add the last yolk only if the mixture will not hold together when pressed.
- CookingIf cooked inside a bird, the centre of the stuffing must reach 165F/74C, which usually means the bird itself is well past done. Baking the forcemeat separately in a dish at 350F for 25-30 minutes, or frying it as balls, gives better results on both counts.
- Testing the seasoningFry a teaspoonful and taste it before committing the rest. The raw mixture tells you very little, and forcemeat under-salted disappears entirely against roast meat.