How To Select Poultry

In selecting poultry full-grown fowls have the best flavor, provided they are young. The age may be determined by turning the wing backward - if it yields, it is tender. The same is true if the skin on the leg is readily broken. Older poultry makes the best soup. The intestines should be removed at once, but frequently in shipping they are left in and, hence, when removed, the fowl needs washing in several waters. The next to the last water should contain a half teaspoonful of baking soda, which sweetens and renders all more wholesome. The giblets are the gizzard, heart, liver and neck.

Roast Turkey

Carefully pluck the bird and singe off the down with lighted paper; break the leg bone close to the foot, hang up the bird and draw out the strings of the thigh. Never cut the breast; make a small slit down the back of the neck and take out the crop that way, then cut the neck bone close, and after the bird is stuffed the skin can be turned over the back and the crop will look full and round. Cut around the vent, making the hole as small as possible, and draw carefully, taking care that the gall bag and the intestines joining the gizzard are not broken. Open the gizzard, take out the contents and detach the liver from the gall bladder. The liver, gizzard and heart, if used in the gravy, will need to be boiled an hour and a half and chopped as fine as possible. Wash the turkey and wipe thoroughly dry, inside and out; then fill the inside with stuffing, and sew the skin of the neck over the back. Sew up the opening at the vent, then run a long skewer into the pinion and thigh through the body, passing it through the opposite pinion and thigh. Put a skewer in the small part of the leg, close on the outside and push it through. Pass a string over the points of the skewers and tie it securely at the back.

Sprinkle well with Albers flour, cover the breast with nicely-buttered white paper, place on a grating in the dripping-pan and put in the oven to roast. Baste every fifteen minutes - a few times with butter and water, and then with the gravy in the dripping-pan. Do not have too hot an oven. A turkey weighing ten pounds will require three hours to bake.

Roast Goose

Get a goose that is not more than eight months old, and the fatter it is the more juicy the meat. The dressing should be made of three pints of bread crumbs, six ounces of. butter, a teaspoonful each of sage, black pepper and salt and chopped onions. Don't stuff very full, but sew very closely so that the fat will not get in. Place in a baking pan with a little water, and baste often with a little salt water and vinegar. Turn the goose frequently so that it may be evenly browned. Bake about 21/2 hours. When done, take it from the pan, drain off the fat and add the chopped giblets, which have previously been boiled tender, together with the water in which they were done. Thicken with Albers flour and butter rubbed together; let boil, and serve.

Pigeon Pie

Clean and truss three or four pigeons, rub outside with a mixture of pepper and salt; rub inside with a bit of butter, fill with a bread-and-butter stuffing, or mashed potatoes; sew up the slit, butter the sides of a tin basin or pudding dish, and line (the sides only) with pie paste, rolled to quarter of an inch thickness; lay the birds in; for three large tame pigeons, cut quarter of a pound of sweet butter and put it over them, strew over a large teaspoonful of salt and a small teaspoonful of pepper, with finely cut parsley; dredge a large teaspoonful of Albers wheat flour over; put in water to nearly fill the pie; lay skewers across the top, cover with a puff paste crust; cut a slit in the middle, ornament the edge with leaves, braids, or shells of paste, and put in a moderately hot or quick oven for one hour; when nearly done brush the top over with the yolk of an egg beaten with a little milk, and finish. The pigeons for this pie may be cut in two or more pieces, if preferred. Any small birds may be done in this manner.

Roast Pigeon

Clean and truss two young pigeons, mince the liver, and mix with them two ounces of finely grated bread crumbs, two ounces of fresh butter, finely chopped onion, a teaspoonful shredded parsley, a little salt, pepper, nutmeg. Fill birds with this forcemeat, fasten a slice of fat bacon over the breast of each, and roast. Make a sauce by mixing a little water with the gravy which drops from the birds, and boiling it with a little thickening; season it with pepper, salt and chopped parsley.