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| Power Style Wellness Connections |
Stuffing Stories
By Kimberly Crum
FOOD BY KATHY BOLGER;
PHOTO BY EWA WOJTKOWSKA
No side dish is more traditional to Thanksgiving
than stuffing, the starchy fulfillment of the proverb
“Waste not, want not.” Thou shalt not discard the
stale bread or giblets.
Neither shall you waste the space provided by the cavernous black hole in the
turkey’s center. Stuffing is peasant food, like dumplings, burgoo, and corn beef
hash. It can be delightfully ordinary or exotically creative.
To help me explore this Thanksgiving tradition, I consulted a panel of experts —
friends and family who have generously responded to my request for “stuffing
stories.” Talk of Thanksgiving stuffing evokes memories. My friend Thelma
remembers watching her father close the turkey cavity with “a sturdy needle and
strong white thread.” And Connie recalls how, as a newlywed, she exploded her first
turkey when she ignored her mother’s advice to stuff the bird loosely (and she left
the giblet packet in the turkey). My friend Erlene insists she has nothing to say
about the subject. “Dressing is what we had in Quality, Kentucky,” she asserts.
“REAL dressing MUST be made with cornbread… prepared in the well-seasoned
iron skillet given to me by my mother,” says Erlene. Indeed the word “dressing”
seems more southern and genteel than its no-nonsense Yankee counterpart.
Dressing suggests an adornment to improve the appearance of the turkey. Yet,
some consider dressing to be homely. “If the turkey had a say, I doubt it would favor
being dressed with brown lumpy stuff,” says Yolanda who has never been able to
cook up enthusiasm for either stuffing or dressing. The only reason she stuffs her
turkey is to improve the flavor of the meat. But she still thinks stuffing is an apt
Thanksgiving word. “It describes our stuffed tummies or stuffed feelings at large
family gatherings, and it even applies to stuffing the kids around a smaller out-of the-
way-table.”
I’ve tried to reproduce my mother Priscilla’s sage-seasoned white bread stuffing:
crispy on the outside, moist on the inside. My effort to reproduce Priscilla’s dressing
is complicated by one irreconcilable difference. My husband John prefers “real
stuffing”— the kind cooked inside the turkey until it becomes an amorphous mound
that is moist on the outside, moist on the inside. From a food-safety point-of-view, I
argue it is best to cook your stuffing outside the turkey. And from a culinary point-of-
view, I argue that cooking the stuffing to its proper temperature results in an
overcooked turkey. My husband stands by tradition.
Not all cooks or diners wish to maintain their mothers’ traditions. Some of us have
given up the gizzard, so to speak. My sister-in-law Susan couldn’t wait to be a
homemaker so she could leave the giblets out of the dressing and gravy.
David, a food writer and noted gourmand, swears by his Grandmother’s traditional
sage and onion stuffing (see recipe). But don’t let his obedience to tradition fool
you. David embellishes Grandma’s stuffing with carrots, apples and pork sausage.
He is an example of American inventiveness; he improves tradition.
Thanksgiving dressing seems to have been gentrified with fancy ingredients. These
days there are as many ways to prepare stuffing as there are wattles in the hen
house. A keyword search on the culinary website, Epicurious.com, results in 135
recipes for Thanksgiving stuffing. These recipes have descriptive and variably
appetizing names: Savory Bread Pudding with Mushrooms and Parmesan Cheese;
Bread Stuffing with Crawfish; Bacon and Collard Greens; and Chestnut, Prune and
Pancetta stuffing. Though recipes contain wildly diverse ingredients, they seem to
have five things in common: a starch, a liquid, a fruit or nut, a seasoning and a
savory embellishment.
Many recipes include the ironic recommendation to use “high-quality stale bread”:
wheat or white bread, brioche, sourdough, challah, corn bread or rice. For taste and
crunchiness, add fruits or nuts: cranberries, apples, raisins, dates, pine nuts,
hazelnuts, pistachios, walnuts, pecans and chestnuts. Preferred liquids to add to
bread are butter and pan juices, but contemporary recipes include balsamic
vinegar, lemon juice, applesauce, honey and cognac. For seasoning, most recipes
use Thanksgiving’s queen of seasoning, sage, the earthiest of herbs. But you can
also use tarragon, marjoram, oregano, parsley, rosemary, thyme and cayenne. The
final ingredient — the savory embellishment — comes from the earth or sea: oysters
and gizzards, pork sausage, crawfish, spinach, kale or mushrooms.
No matter whether you call it stuffing or dressing, and no matter whether you prefer
it mushy or crispy, this traditional side dish will always have a welcome place at the
Thanksgiving table. David Dominé, the author of Adventures in New Kentucky
Cooking, offers his grandmother’s recipe.
He says, “The flavors of sage and onion spice my memories of Thanksgiving, one of
those rare times of the year when stuffing made its way from the dusty pages of my
grandmother’s old cookbook to the dining room table. I like to honor grandma’s
memory by keeping it simple.”
Sage and Onion Dressing
10 cups cubed white bread
3 cups coarsely chopped white onion
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup unsalted butter
11/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons ground sage
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and toast the cubed bread on a baking sheet for
15 minutes or until golden brown. As the bread toasts, heat the chicken broth over
medium heat till bubbles start to form around the edge of the pan. Turn off the heat
and add the butter to the hot broth, allowing it to melt. In a large bowl, toss the
bread cubes with the chopped onion, salt, pepper and sage. Whisk the butter into
the broth and slowly drizzle over the bread-and-onion mixture, tossing to coat well.
Grease a large baking dish or casserole with 2 tablespoons of butter. Spoon the
dressing into it and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 45 minutes, stirring the
mixture at 15-minute intervals. (The foil may be removed entirely during the last 15
minutes to ensure a crusty surface.) Prior to serving, add more salt and sage as
needed. For a more substantial dressing, I like to add 1/2 cup each of finely diced
carrot and celery and 1 cup each of chopped apple and crumbled, cooked country
sausage.
Get more gourmet recipes from the October 2007 Ordinary Cooks Do Gourmet
article.
By Kimberly Crum
FOOD BY KATHY BOLGER;
PHOTO BY EWA WOJTKOWSKA
No side dish is more traditional to Thanksgiving
than stuffing, the starchy fulfillment of the proverb
“Waste not, want not.” Thou shalt not discard the
stale bread or giblets.
Neither shall you waste the space provided by the cavernous black hole in the
turkey’s center. Stuffing is peasant food, like dumplings, burgoo, and corn beef
hash. It can be delightfully ordinary or exotically creative.
To help me explore this Thanksgiving tradition, I consulted a panel of experts —
friends and family who have generously responded to my request for “stuffing
stories.” Talk of Thanksgiving stuffing evokes memories. My friend Thelma
remembers watching her father close the turkey cavity with “a sturdy needle and
strong white thread.” And Connie recalls how, as a newlywed, she exploded her first
turkey when she ignored her mother’s advice to stuff the bird loosely (and she left
the giblet packet in the turkey). My friend Erlene insists she has nothing to say
about the subject. “Dressing is what we had in Quality, Kentucky,” she asserts.
“REAL dressing MUST be made with cornbread… prepared in the well-seasoned
iron skillet given to me by my mother,” says Erlene. Indeed the word “dressing”
seems more southern and genteel than its no-nonsense Yankee counterpart.
Dressing suggests an adornment to improve the appearance of the turkey. Yet,
some consider dressing to be homely. “If the turkey had a say, I doubt it would favor
being dressed with brown lumpy stuff,” says Yolanda who has never been able to
cook up enthusiasm for either stuffing or dressing. The only reason she stuffs her
turkey is to improve the flavor of the meat. But she still thinks stuffing is an apt
Thanksgiving word. “It describes our stuffed tummies or stuffed feelings at large
family gatherings, and it even applies to stuffing the kids around a smaller out-of the-
way-table.”
I’ve tried to reproduce my mother Priscilla’s sage-seasoned white bread stuffing:
crispy on the outside, moist on the inside. My effort to reproduce Priscilla’s dressing
is complicated by one irreconcilable difference. My husband John prefers “real
stuffing”— the kind cooked inside the turkey until it becomes an amorphous mound
that is moist on the outside, moist on the inside. From a food-safety point-of-view, I
argue it is best to cook your stuffing outside the turkey. And from a culinary point-of-
view, I argue that cooking the stuffing to its proper temperature results in an
overcooked turkey. My husband stands by tradition.
Not all cooks or diners wish to maintain their mothers’ traditions. Some of us have
given up the gizzard, so to speak. My sister-in-law Susan couldn’t wait to be a
homemaker so she could leave the giblets out of the dressing and gravy.
David, a food writer and noted gourmand, swears by his Grandmother’s traditional
sage and onion stuffing (see recipe). But don’t let his obedience to tradition fool
you. David embellishes Grandma’s stuffing with carrots, apples and pork sausage.
He is an example of American inventiveness; he improves tradition.
Thanksgiving dressing seems to have been gentrified with fancy ingredients. These
days there are as many ways to prepare stuffing as there are wattles in the hen
house. A keyword search on the culinary website, Epicurious.com, results in 135
recipes for Thanksgiving stuffing. These recipes have descriptive and variably
appetizing names: Savory Bread Pudding with Mushrooms and Parmesan Cheese;
Bread Stuffing with Crawfish; Bacon and Collard Greens; and Chestnut, Prune and
Pancetta stuffing. Though recipes contain wildly diverse ingredients, they seem to
have five things in common: a starch, a liquid, a fruit or nut, a seasoning and a
savory embellishment.
Many recipes include the ironic recommendation to use “high-quality stale bread”:
wheat or white bread, brioche, sourdough, challah, corn bread or rice. For taste and
crunchiness, add fruits or nuts: cranberries, apples, raisins, dates, pine nuts,
hazelnuts, pistachios, walnuts, pecans and chestnuts. Preferred liquids to add to
bread are butter and pan juices, but contemporary recipes include balsamic
vinegar, lemon juice, applesauce, honey and cognac. For seasoning, most recipes
use Thanksgiving’s queen of seasoning, sage, the earthiest of herbs. But you can
also use tarragon, marjoram, oregano, parsley, rosemary, thyme and cayenne. The
final ingredient — the savory embellishment — comes from the earth or sea: oysters
and gizzards, pork sausage, crawfish, spinach, kale or mushrooms.
No matter whether you call it stuffing or dressing, and no matter whether you prefer
it mushy or crispy, this traditional side dish will always have a welcome place at the
Thanksgiving table. David Dominé, the author of Adventures in New Kentucky
Cooking, offers his grandmother’s recipe.
He says, “The flavors of sage and onion spice my memories of Thanksgiving, one of
those rare times of the year when stuffing made its way from the dusty pages of my
grandmother’s old cookbook to the dining room table. I like to honor grandma’s
memory by keeping it simple.”
Sage and Onion Dressing
10 cups cubed white bread
3 cups coarsely chopped white onion
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup unsalted butter
11/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons ground sage
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and toast the cubed bread on a baking sheet for
15 minutes or until golden brown. As the bread toasts, heat the chicken broth over
medium heat till bubbles start to form around the edge of the pan. Turn off the heat
and add the butter to the hot broth, allowing it to melt. In a large bowl, toss the
bread cubes with the chopped onion, salt, pepper and sage. Whisk the butter into
the broth and slowly drizzle over the bread-and-onion mixture, tossing to coat well.
Grease a large baking dish or casserole with 2 tablespoons of butter. Spoon the
dressing into it and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 45 minutes, stirring the
mixture at 15-minute intervals. (The foil may be removed entirely during the last 15
minutes to ensure a crusty surface.) Prior to serving, add more salt and sage as
needed. For a more substantial dressing, I like to add 1/2 cup each of finely diced
carrot and celery and 1 cup each of chopped apple and crumbled, cooked country
sausage.
Get more gourmet recipes from the October 2007 Ordinary Cooks Do Gourmet
article.
SAFETY TIPS FOR STUFFING
YOUR TURKEY:
• The FDA advises to cook
stuffing to a minimum 165
degree Fahrenheit. A stuffed
bird increases cooking time by
15-30 minutes.
• To promote food safety, and
keep the turkey from
overcooking, stuff the turkey
cavity while the prepared
dressing is warm. Begin to
roast the turkey as soon as the
turkey is stuffed.
• Use a mesh stuffing bag to
easily stuff and remove turkey
dressing. Regency brand bags
are available for $2.99 at
Linens and Things: (home
page: http://www.lnt.
com/home/index.jsp)
• Use no more than 3/4 cup
stuffing per pound of turkey, in
order to allow the stuffing to
expand. And remove the giblet
packet before roasting!
• Pin the neck skin over the
exposed stuffing with a skewer
and cover with aluminum foil or
a slice of bread.
• Remove stuffing immediately,
as soon as the bird is roasted,
and place in a casserole in the
oven to warm while the turkey
“rests” for 15 minutes.
(Sources: www.ehow.
com/how_6601-stuff-turkey.
html & www.fiss.usda.
gov/fact_sheets/lets_talk_turke
y/)
YOUR TURKEY:
• The FDA advises to cook
stuffing to a minimum 165
degree Fahrenheit. A stuffed
bird increases cooking time by
15-30 minutes.
• To promote food safety, and
keep the turkey from
overcooking, stuff the turkey
cavity while the prepared
dressing is warm. Begin to
roast the turkey as soon as the
turkey is stuffed.
• Use a mesh stuffing bag to
easily stuff and remove turkey
dressing. Regency brand bags
are available for $2.99 at
Linens and Things: (home
page: http://www.lnt.
com/home/index.jsp)
• Use no more than 3/4 cup
stuffing per pound of turkey, in
order to allow the stuffing to
expand. And remove the giblet
packet before roasting!
• Pin the neck skin over the
exposed stuffing with a skewer
and cover with aluminum foil or
a slice of bread.
• Remove stuffing immediately,
as soon as the bird is roasted,
and place in a casserole in the
oven to warm while the turkey
“rests” for 15 minutes.
(Sources: www.ehow.
com/how_6601-stuff-turkey.
html & www.fiss.usda.
gov/fact_sheets/lets_talk_turke
y/)