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Roast Turkey or Chicken
Having picked and drawn the fowls, wash them well in two or three waters; wipe them dry; dredge them with a little flour inside and out, and a little pepper and salt; prepare a dressing of bread and cracker crumbs, fill the bodies and crops of the fowls and then bake them from two to three hours; baste them frequently while roasting; stew the giblets in a sauce-pan; just before serving, chop the giblets fine; after taking up the chicken, and the water in which the giblets were boiled, add the chopped giblets to the gravy of the roast fowl; thicken with a little flour, which has been previously wet with the water; boil up, and serve in a gravy-dish Roast chickens and turkey should be accompanied with celery and jellies. 0
A bare-bones roasting method that assumes you already know your bird and your fire. The gaps worth filling are oven temperature, the two-cavity stuffing, and the fact that the stated time only makes sense for a turkey.
- Oven temperatureNo number is given; domestic ranges of the period were judged by hand and experience rather than by a dial. Roast at 325F for a stuffed bird; a hotter oven sets the outside long before a packed body cavity comes up to temperature.
- Two to three hours is turkey timeThat range suits a smallish turkey of about 8-10 lb; a larger stuffed bird will need longer. A 4-5 lb chicken is done in appreciably less time, nearer 1 1/2 to 2 hours; go by the thigh reading, 165F at the joint, and the same 165F in the centre of the stuffing.
- "Picked and drawn"Plucked and gutted. Modern birds arrive both, but check the cavity for the giblet packet and pull any remaining pinfeathers with tweezers.
- "Bodies and crops"Two cavities: the main body and the loose neck skin where the crop sat, which gets stuffed and then skewered or sewn shut. Pack both loosely so heat can penetrate.
- Bread and cracker crumbsThe recipe names the materials but not the proportions. Soda or water crackers were the usual cracker in North American kitchens of the period; a workable modern reading is roughly half stale bread and half crushed crackers, moistened with butter and stock, with sage or savory as you like.
- The gibletsSimmer neck, heart and gizzard 45 minutes to an hour in lightly salted water; add the liver only for the last ten minutes or it turns grainy and bitter. Keep the cooking liquid, it is the body of the gravy.
- Thickening"Wet with the water" means a slurry, not a roux. Whisk the flour into a little cool giblet broth before it goes near the hot pan juices, or it will lump.
- Dredging with flourThe flour rubbed over the skin helps it brown and colours the drippings. Salt and pepper the cavity as directed, but season the skin generously too.
- ServingCelery here means raw celery served as a relish, commonly stood upright in a celery glass; the jellies would most likely be a tart fruit jelly such as currant or crabapple, though the recipe does not specify. Reckon a 12 lb turkey with stuffing at about 10 to 12 servings.
The instruction to fill "the bodies and crops" suggests an era when a cook bought a bird whole and feathered, and the neck skin was still attached in a generous flap. The Home Cook Book, compiled in Toronto in the 1870s from contributions by local women, reflects a table where roast turkey was the anchor of Christmas and New Year dinners and roast chicken the Sunday equivalent, the two given a single recipe. Celery served plain as a relish, and tart jelly beside poultry, were both standard on nineteenth-century North American tables; the celery glass was a recognised piece of dining furniture. The stray "0" at the end appears to be an artifact rather than part of the recipe.