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Plain Stuffing for Fowls
One cup of grated bread crumbs, one-half cup of milk, one tablespoon of chopped onion, one tablespoon of butter, one teaspoon of salt, one-quarter teaspoon of pepper. Add the seasoning and butter to the crumbs, and beat in the milk.
A minimal bread stuffing of the sort meant to be doubled or tripled depending on the bird. The quantities given here are small enough to matter.
- YieldOne cup of crumbs makes only a small amount of stuffing, enough for a very small bird. A 12 lb turkey would need something like six to eight times this quantity.
- Grated bread crumbsThis means dry bread grated on a box grater, not the fine sandy commercial crumb and not soft fresh crumb. Day-old bread with the crust left on, torn and pulsed briefly, is the closest equivalent; fresh soft crumb will collapse into paste once the milk goes in.
- The onion is rawA tablespoon of raw chopped onion in a small bird will still taste raw at the point the meat is done. Sweat it in the butter first and add both together, which also gives the mixture the fat it needs.
- ConsistencyHalf a cup of milk to one cup of crumbs is wet. Add it gradually and stop when the mixture just holds together when pressed; dry crumbs vary enormously in how much they absorb.
- Temperature, if stuffed in the birdStuffing inside a carcass must reach 165F at its center, which usually means the breast overcooks before the cavity catches up. Test the stuffing itself with a thermometer rather than judging by the bird.
- Baked separatelyThe same mixture packed into a buttered dish and baked at 350F for 25 to 30 minutes, moistened with a few spoonfuls of stock or pan drippings, gives a browned top and sidesteps the timing problem entirely.
- SeasoningA teaspoon of salt to a cup of crumbs is on the assertive side, and stuffing is generally seasoned more strongly than bread, but taste before it goes near the bird if you have used salted butter or commercial crumbs.
The Butterick Publishing Company sold patterns before it sold cookbooks, and its household volumes carry the same instinct: give the plain pattern first, then the variations. This is the plain pattern for stuffing. Bread stuffings of this kind broadly follow the English line, as distinct from the cornbread stuffings associated with the American South, and the word dressing for the same mixture was in common use in the United States by 1900 -- often said to be a genteel avoidance of "stuffing," though the two terms appear side by side in period books with no clear rule. The absence of any herb at all is worth noting: sage, the herb most associated with poultry stuffing today, does not appear here.