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Stuffing for Roast Chicken
4 cups bread crumbs 2 teaspoons salt 1 egg, slightly beaten teaspoon pepper teaspoon poultry seasoning or onion 2 tablespoons butter, melted 2-3 cups boiling water Mix in order given, combine thoroughly and use to stuff chicken.
Butter may be omitted if chicken is fat, or beef drippings may be substituted. If a dry, crumbly dressing is desired, omit the boiling water.
A plain bread stuffing of the sort that assumes a cook already knows what dressing should feel like. Two of the seasoning quantities and the water measure need judgment before you start.
- The water quantity is not usable as printedThe water quantity is very high -- Two to three cups of boiling water against four cups of crumbs makes for a soft, wet dressing rather than the loose one most cooks expect; the recipe itself offers the dry version as the alternative. If you want the looser texture, add hot water or stock a few tablespoons at a time until the crumbs just hold together when squeezed, which for dry crumbs is usually well under a cup.
- Missing fractionsThe pepper and poultry seasoning are given without amounts. A quarter teaspoon of pepper and a half to one teaspoon of poultry seasoning suit this volume; taste the mixture before it goes near the bird.
- Bread crumbs meant something elseBread crumbs may mean something else -- In older stuffing recipes "bread crumbs" often means torn or diced day-old bread rather than the fine dried crumbs sold for breading. Fine crumbs will pack into a dense mass however little liquid you add.
- Onion "or" seasoningThe original offers poultry seasoning or onion as alternatives. If you use onion, a small one finely chopped and softened in the butter first gives far more than raw onion stirred through.
- Temperature inside the birdStuffing packed into a chicken insulates itself and lags behind the meat. Fill loosely, and check that the centre of the stuffing reaches 165F rather than timing by the bird alone.
- The dry versionOmitting the water, as the note allows, gives a crumbly dressing that works better baked separately in a dish than inside the cavity, where it will draw juices and set solid.
- Fat substitutionsThe recipe offers beef drippings in place of butter; they give a heavier, more savoury result. Rendered chicken fat is closer to what the recipe is reaching for if the bird is lean.
- YieldFour cups of crumbs makes enough for a 4-5 lb chicken with a little over; bake any surplus in a small covered dish alongside.
Bread stuffing built on stale crumbs, fat, egg and a single blended seasoning is the American domestic standard that had settled into place well before this book appeared, and the recipe's tone shows it: no discussion of why, only the order of mixing. The instruction that butter may be omitted if the chicken is fat, with beef drippings offered as a substitute, belongs to a kitchen where cooking fat was accounted for rather than bought by preference. "Poultry seasoning" appears here as a jarred blend offered as an alternative to plain onion.