Favorite Stuffing Recipe

[In the Kitchen]

Oyster Dressing

Now they asked me to fix oyster dressing along with regular. Anyone got recipe they have so I can go get ingredients? I got cookbooks but I used all of them already. Does someone have tried and true dressing they like? Thanks for understanding. Stores are open till 12 tonite.

 

[Audeo]

ITK, I may be way too late to help you, but I make a cornbread dressing with oysters and absolutely love the stuff! I described the "recipe" to Goodweed below this thread on the second page of "Smooshy Cornbread Dressings" or something like that.

To make this, you make the driest cornbread imagineable (look further below for Psiguyy's thread requesting everyone's worst cornbread recipe) and then follow the thread under "Smooshy"

You may already have the stuff in your pantry, except for the oysters perhaps...

 

[In the Kitchen]

Audeo, if I wasn't so confused I would have taken time to read more of the comments on this site. I just found out this morning they wanted me to fix something instead of getting something ready made. They didn't like the combination. Said I could make something better. Ho Ho Ho. I do like oyster dressing but there is only one person who cares for it and I am going to make your Italian Dressing. That sounds good and since you say your husband likes it must be a winner. At this point, I marinated the turkey in bourbon and drank enough to help me cope with all the cooking I have tomorrow so I guess I am going to bed without the oysters. I do thank you for your time and hope your Thanksgiving is everything you want it to be. I am sure if your drink enough bourbon anything will turn out good. First time for marinating in bourbon. Had to throw in 2 1/2 cups kind of much. Smells good.Thanks again Audeo I do appreiate your comments and will print them out.

 

[Audeo]

ROFL here, ITK!!!!!

As I'm beginning to wrap up the cooking for the evening (an hour more, then TWO for cleanup, LOL!), I'll be pouring me a wee dram, I assure you!

I look forward to hearing about all the bragging over your cooking tomorrow...it's too bad that you went ahead and showed them how well you could cook, so now they want more!!!

I wish you a warm, wonderful Thanksgiving, as well. I am thoroughly looking forward to the entire day!

 

[In the Kitchen]

Hi Audeo, my Thanksgiving went well and I thank all of you for participating. I did make your husband's favorite stuffing but because it was at last minute, I think I made some things quick especially the stuffing. My pumpkin pie fell out of the shell when I wanted to put it in the oven but I had made pecan pie and coconut custard. Pumpkin is always regular and I don't think they wanted to ask where it was. They knew they made me fix it at last minute. They all fell asleep after the meal so assume it was okay. I spent almost whole evening cleaning every pot and dish I own. Not to mention the fridge is crammed with odds and ends. I may sound like I am complaining but next year probably will do the same. Every year they say they want to give me break but then change their minds and ask if I wouldn't want to prepare fresh bird? Did any of you keep the bones for soup? I couldn't really think of saving the bones again. I guess I am starting to slow down. I sure know one thing drinking couple nips helped my mood the night before and no one in my neighborhood stayed home. Only smelled the turkey at my house. Seems like I can still smell it even though it was fixed last week. Imagination working overtime. Well, now Christmas and what will we do then?

 

[Lifter]

While readers are on task and topic, thinking about "stuiffing", I'll repeat this once more, as it draws few criticisms at home...

If we agree to brine the turkey, we have access to the neck, heart, giblets and liver well in advance...

So, in a smallpot, perhaps the night before, lets cook the neck, heart, and giblets in about 2.5 cups of gently salted water at a low boil for about 20 minutes...(you might add a quarter cup of chopped garlic)

Then add the liver and continue cooking for an aditional 30 minutes.

Allow it to cool, remove the neck, strip the meat and discard the bones...strip the gristle off the "giblets"...

Toss the whole lot, water and garlic included, into a blender "osteriser" and reduce to watery "pulp"...reserve for the next day, when you will "do" the turkey...

(The following is based on a 14 lb turkey..increase as needed for bigger birds)

I use about a loaf, to 1.5 loaves of Dempster's 12 grain bread, and cut away all the crust material, tearing up the bread, into small pieces, indeed around the size of packaged croutons...

Set that aside, and feed the birds and squirrels with the discards (its Christmas for them, too!)

In a cast fry pan, melt a half cup of margerine over low heat...when this is reduced to a liquid, a 3" diameter yellow onion, finely diced, (garlic, if you did not include with the organ meat the night before) and a stalk of celery very finely sliced and chopped...(I'm still thinking on the carrot addition, but it would work!) sauteed until translucent, and turn off the heat...stir in your ground up sage, or poultry seasoning spices (I'm down to using poultry seasoning, but stubbornly remain "sure" if I could just manage to be able to "smell" a bit better, I could gauge the Sage properly, and go that route instead...

I can "carefreely" add in some parsley, oregano, marjoram and ground rosemary to this mix, and stir very thoroughly, that the retained heat will "sweat" the spices into the mix...

Start ladling the bread crumbs in and swirling and mixing, that they are "infused" with the spicing and flavouring that I'm trying to attain...

Note that a number of other Members report adding walnut meats, probably ground up, to this...I haven't tried that, but before "blood pressure" became a family eating issue, I would at this point be adding several dashes of the "nutty" taste of soya sauce, and again, spreading it around...

Pull that "soup" of water/stock, garlic and organ meat out that was "prepped" last night and again, mix thoroughly...

Continue adding the bread crumbs until depleted and mixing that all are saturated in "goodness" and the flavouring is consistent throughout...it should seem almost "pudding-like" in consistency, but somewhat drier...because, of course, the turkey fats are going to leak into it to give it the true "stuffing" texture...

Stuff this into your bird when you are immediately ready to cook (if you stuff the bird ahead of time, you are risking food poisoning!)(through the abdominal cavity, and the rest into the neck area, pinning the skin into place) and slam it into the oven, with the "skewers emplaced", breast side down, of course, "flipping the bird" after 90 minutes...yadda,yadda.yadda, we've been through that part of it, enough, surely?

And roast until the breast meat is about 150-155, the thigh meat is 170-175, and the stuffing is at least 140, measured with your digital meat probe...then pull it out, allow it to continue heating until the meat is optimized for temperature...and IMMEDIATELY dig out all the stuffing...place in a bowl and cover...

Carve your bird, and transfer all the "leakage" back to the gravy pan (there will be "lots") and create your gravy in the fashion you favour...

But you will REALLY like the stuffing!

GoodWeed, my friend, you will undoubtably hit a few memory prompts from this unto your parent's recipe and methodology, and I hope you go for it, guy!...

Sorry, but I'm sending another body up to SSM Ontario this week, as am just too tied up myself, otherwise, I'd be PM'ing you to pick out a decent restaurant where we could meet and have me buy you dinner, and we could both bitch about what could have been "tweaked" to make it better...

Lifter

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Lifter; I always boil up the livers and giblets for my stuffing. I have always stuffed the bird as you describe. The texture is fine, but where I seem to have problems is in getting the right amount of sage, thyme, and pepper just right. Maybe I'm just being too critical. Maybe my memory makes the stuffing of old just better than it realy was. In any case, I'll be giving your recipe a go, as I have a son coming home from Kuwait just before Christmas, and we are definatley barbecuing a turkey then. Believe it or not, stuffing works in the old Webber jsut as it does in the oven. I'll let you know how it turns out. Thanks, buuuuudy. And yet again, we seem to have these common methods and tastes going on. It's almost uncanny.

Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North

 

[In the Kitchen]

These comments are worth framing. I am surely going to save this as I want to be ready next time with the bird. Lifter and Goodweed bring such detail that it takes me two or three time to 'digest' exactly how to do it. I thank you both for the time and understanding you share. Thanks from one who never stops learning.

 

[Lifter]

GoodWeed, my friend, I probably have the crummiest "nose" in the world to try this...but its something I'll suggest to you, as you are probably better at it, once you give it a shot...

Given you follow "my" suggested method of running up "your" stuffing (remember! YOU are going to eat this, not ME!), try a couple of these "tips" in running it up...

Start with the EVOO in the pan, and adding your onion and garlic and sauteeing same...now get your face down above it and give it a "sniff" as it "renders" to establish the "start point" of "taste/smell", while remembering that both the onion and the garlic aroma will cook out and sweeten a lot, the longer they "cook" (an argument for the slow cooking method of the internal stuffed turkey, BTW!)

You might add your rendered "stock" that you simmered your "giblets" at this point, together with the minced meat, and at this point, start adding your seasoning, about a teaspoon at a time, with the heat kept down low, and "sniffing" the change that comes about as the seasonings cook out into the oil and "flower" into scent...(remembering the onion/garlic scent will be dying off as you go)

At a guess, the longer you cooked it up on low heat, the more "scent" you might "lose", or perhaps "develop", but if you have a good "nose" you can probably nail it down pretty good...

(Aside from that, you will have to buy the very freshest of spices you can find...regrettably they aren't dated for "bottling date" of "manufacture", but as Emeril rightly said, a few years back, if its been open and unused for more than 3-6 months, its not gonna "perform" as advertised...and you may as well dump it...a couple bucks for a fresh teaspoon of spice might seem insane, until you weigh it against a SUCCESSFUL versus DISAPPOINTING Christmas turkey...)

Likewise as you slowly add your finely ripped pieces of multi-grain bread, continue the "inhaling exercise", to define which one of the lustres are being lost due to volume of stuffing (remembering to keep mixing well!), and if you have to add more seasoning, remember to mix, stir, let it rest and the spicing to be given an opportunity to "bloom" a bit, as the stuffing treats it differently than the basic oily start...

And sure, sometimes you will absolutely "NAIL IT" (in which case, I hope you have taken notes!) and sometimes you will reminisce that a tad more of this or maybe a sprinle less of that, would (read "might") have made it perfect...we are, after all, "cooks", neither "Chefs", nor "Gods", and if you are doing the "interior stuffing" method, the bird itself may have a lot to say on the final outcome...

But I believe that our parents and grandparents probably weren't much "good" at this until they had 3-4 decades of practice either, and if you can imagine growing up in the "dirty 30's", literaly any result of a stuffed goose or turkey, or chicken, or whatever you managed to get up for Christmas or Thanksgiving would have been a "dream meal"...its a bit tougher when we have to challenge those legends...

Lifter

 

[Lifter]

OOPS!

I forgot to add it to the previous post...!

GoodWeed, my prayers for the son coming home from Kuwait, as well as my renwed wishes and prayers that your "stuffing" comes out to his contentment, even more than yours, in this case...

You can like or dislike the USA policy on Iraq, but I can have nothing other than the outright admiration of the guys and gals in uniform that are sent over there at such enormous personal risk, and "get it done"...if any coment from me can contribute as much as an "iota" to such a serviceperson, it will be well worth the time at the keyboard...God Love Them All...

Lifter

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Lifter; Thank you for your prayers for my son. He is an outstading, if stubborn young man. HIs moral standards are above reproach. I never have had to worry about him getting into any kind of trouble, except for the way he drove my dirt-bike as a teen. To much "try hard" and not enough "know how" at that time in his life. But he survived it.

In any case, your prayers are a wonderful thing.

And as for the dressing advice, well, you've brought me back to the basics. The technique you describe is what I used to always do when cooking something up. I still usually do. But sometimes, I fear my own cooking knowledge gets in my way. I'll take shortcuts and thing I can guestimate the seasonings, or the timing, or how different flavors will interact with each other. For the most part, I'm successful with that. But sometimes, you just have to stop and smell the dressing (like that pun on the old cliche ). I have figured out how to make a great many things that way. The three dishes I have to absolutely follow that advice with are pineapple sweet and sour sauce, tomato-based pasta sauces, and chili. I do it to a lesser extent with most other things.

Thanks for reminding me that I too am only human, and have to follow basic rules. And I don't know any chef who doesn't test the quality of a sauce, or stew for last minute seasoning corrections before serving it. It's just part of the cooking process. Again thanks.

Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North