Over
the years my wife has developed a crowd-pleasing stuffing with a
contrast of textures: soft (corn bread), spicy (sausage), chewy (dried
apricots), and crunchy (pecans).
Yield: 15-20 servings
Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
2 boxes corn bread mix
3 celery stalks, washed, ends trimmed, leaves discarded
1 pound mushrooms, brown, shiitake, or portabella, washed, pat dried, finely chopped
2 medium yellow onions, peeled, ends removed, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped
1 stick sweet butter
1 1/2 cups turkey or chicken stock
4 Italian style sweet sausages
1 cup dried apricots, finely chopped
1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped
Sea salt and pepper
Method
Make
the corn bread the night before and leave the pan on the counter so the
corn bread dries out. Use any cornbread mix you like. My wife uses
Jiffy. It's inexpensive and tastes great. The instructions are on the
box.
Saute the sausages whole in a frying pan with a little
olive oil until browned, remove, cut into bite-sized pieces, and set
aside. Pour off the excess fat. Add the celery, mushrooms, onion, and
garlic into the pan with the stick of butter and saute. Season with sea
salt and pepper. Cook until lightly browned, then add stock and summer
15 minutes.
Cut the cornbread into chunks and crumble into a
large mixing bowl. Add the apricots, pecans, and the saute. Stir well
and set aside until you're ready to stuff the turkey.
- Recipe courtesy of David Latt