How To Bone A Turkey

Have a tender turkey, singe, draw, wash, and wipe it dry. Lay it before you, and have a sharp, narrowpointed knife. Scrape the flesh from the bone; do not cut it. Begin by going round the neck and shoulders and wings, taking off all the flesh from the bone, and pushing it before the knife as you proceed. Work the knife slowly and gradually, and do not break the skin. When the flesh has been completely cut from the bone, pull the neck and draw the whole skeleton out, leaving the flesh, which will be shapeless.

Fill out the bird to its own size by stuffing the legs and wings, and then the body, with the following forcemeat. Tie and truss it for cooking, and follow the directions given under "Roast Turkey" for the roasting.

Stuffing For Boned Turkey

Chop to a mince five hardboiled eggs. To them add five slices of a ham which you have minced, and the slices of a whole tongue. Put in a few pieces of salt pickled pork and finish out with breadcrumbs. For seasoning you will need butter, salt and cayenne. If your taste permits it, use onions, thyme, sweet marjoram, celery seed, sweet basil, parsley, or other seasoning.

Turkey Loaf

Cold turkey may be made up with cold ham, as described under "Veal Loaf."

Roast Turkey

Choose a fat turkey, draw and singe it. Save the giblets, that is the heart, liver and gizzard. Wash and clean them, and set over to boil. While they are cooking make the forcemeat, or stuffing. A common forcemeat for turkey is made of breadcrumbs, broken fine, well seasoned with salt and pepper, and, if your taste is pleased with it, also with sage. Butter should be added to give smoothness. When the giblets are tender they may take some time to cook take them from the saucepan, put them in a chopping bowl, and mince. Add them to the breadcrumbs, and add also the little liquor in which they have been cooked. When you have thoroughly mixed the ingredients named above you have a good turkey stuffing or forcemeat.

Now take your turkey, which has been washed in a little clear water and wiped dry, and fill the hole at the neck where the crop came out, and also the whole body of the turkey. Sew up the slits, using a large needle made for such purposes, or a large darning needle. Wind a clean white cord about the body to hold it in shape, and push up the legs close and high against the body. Press the neck gently down into and under the back. Rub the turkey over with butter, dredge it with salt and flour, set it in a drippingpan, pour into the pan a pint of boiling water, and push it in a hot oven. With the liquor in the pan baste the turkey every fifteen minutes. Let it cook two hours and a half to three hours. The heat of the oven should be greater the first hour of the cooking.

Turkey Dressing Venison With Gooseberry Jelly

When the bird is cooked set it on a hot platter, and with the liquor which remains in the pan, seasoned as it is by the stuffing that has oozed out during the cooking and the juices of the meat, make a gravy by thickening with flour. Put the gravy in a separate dish.

If the water cooks out of the pan during the roasting, add more water, always boiling hot.

A turkey may be stuffed with forcemeats given on page 137. Oysters stuff turkeys admirably. They should be well seasoned before being put in. Again, chestnuts boiled, peeled and mashed with butter make a good stuffing. In the South boiled sweet potatoes mashed with butter have been used.

But the best allround forcemeat is that of breadcrumbs seasoned and mixed with minced giblets.

It is an oldfashioned country notion that a turkey gains in sweetness by being frosted after it is ready for stuffing, and in New England and the North generally it used to be the custom to prepare the bird the day before it was to be eaten at Thanksgiving and Christmas and hang it outdoors to be stiffened by the freezing air.

Turkey Dressing

A ninepound turkey will require nearly two baker's loaves of bread for dressing. Cut off the crust from the four sides of the loaf. Crumble it coarse. Season with salt and pepper, being careful of the salt, as there is salt in the bread. Season high. Add one large beaten egg, and one heaping tablespoon of melted butter. Mix lightly with the hands. Add thyme for further seasoning. Thyme that comes in packages is better than that prepared in bottles. After the turkey is drawn, and the lights taken out and wiped dry, put in the dressing lightly by the handful without squeezing the bread. The opening should then be covered with pieces of the crust from the bread to keep the dressing dry.

Fasten the opening together with skewers which come for thus purpose or sew it up. When the turkey is served take away the pieces of bread, and the dressing will be light and moist. No water should ever be used in this dressing. Water makes it soggy. All the moistening required will be found in the egg and melted butter. Turkey gravy should be thickened with browned flour, mixed in cold water: for a pint of gravy two heaping tablespoons of lightly browned flour mixed with water and made rather thick and smooth. Boil until the gravy thickens, and no more. Strain through a tin strainer or a tin skimmer.