“I’m willing to admit I was wrong.”
-Alton Brown, Stuff It, Good Eats Episode #119
Good enough for me.
Well played, Labrador Deceiver. Well played.
I like goose and we always cook the stuffing separately.
Stuffing is in the bird; dressing is on the stove top.
Another vote for “I don’t care what you call it or whether it’s inside the bird or not, as long as there’s plenty”.
And my family mostly cooks it outside the bird, so as to accommodate the many vegetarians in the family.
I stuff the bird. My mother stuffed the bird and I stuff the bird. Nobody has ever gotten sick from eating my stuffing. If somebody is poisoning guests, it’s because he’s a moron who can’t read a thermometer. When the turkey is done, the dressing comes out. Check the temp with an instant-read: if too low, stick it in the microwave and blast it until it’s hot enough to kill Jesus. End of problem. Sometimes I mix the bird stuffing with the extra that has been cooking in the oven. The bird stuffing does indeed have a different flavor because all the juices that would have pooled in the cavity are now in the stuffing. That’s why you don’t make it too moist to begin with.
As for giblets in the gravy, that’s why it’s called giblet gravy. The bits can always be strained out if your sensibilities are too delicate.
Stuffing. Sometimes its all in the bird. For Thanksgiving that wouldn’t be enough for everyone so more is made outside of the bird. But its still stuffing.
Then why is it called, “Stove Top Stuffing”?
:dubious:
Stuffing, in the bird.
Because otherwise, it’s not stuffing, it’s dressing.
Dude, do not piss off your Grandmother.
:dubious:
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Dressing, but only when my grandma makes it. She makes hers in patties so they’re cooked dry in the middle and have tons of gorgeous crispy crust. Then when you dunk 'em in the gravy, they soak it up without getting all sloppy or goopy or otherwise TEXTURE FAIL like a great big pan of the stuff tends to get.
I volunteered at a Thanksgiving meal for the hungry, once, where the diners were given the choice of smooth gravy or giblet gravy. Far more opted for the giblet gravy than the actual giblets would accommodate, so the “giblets” were supplemented with hard-boiled eggs.
My mom always ground up the giblets and put them in the stuffing/dressing/whatever you call that bready stuff. I kind of liked it but my brother hated it.
Crazy. Stuffing balls were a big tradition at our table growing up. The final product, if not the exact shape, is the same idea. Yours is the only other family I’ve heard about who does this.
That actually sounds kind of good. I’ll have to try that on my own sometime.
Agreed.
Even as a child, I never liked the term dressing for that reason. And we never actually stuff the bird anymore because the stuffing doesn’t get to a safe temperature. These days we’re brining or frying or curing and smoking the turkey. A cured/smoked turkey is the best. Stuffing is an afterthought for me unless there’s oysters in it.
And I’m one of them. When you mix up the stuffing/dressing; part of it goes into the bird, and part of it is cooked in a pan. They’re the same thing to me from a preference POV. (as long as I get some)
The stuffing/dressing distinction is relatively new to me–maybe within the last decade and a half I learned it. We always had stuffing, and we always called it stuffing because it was, well, stuffed in the bird. Plus there’s the whole “Stove Top Stuffing” marketing that solidified my idea of stuffing.
It seems to me that true “dressing” is almost invariably of the cornbread variety. That is, the people I’ve known who’ve referred to “dressing” were always referencing the cornbread concoction, not the stale bread crumbs/croutons concoction.
I may refer to stuffing cooked outside the bird as “dressing” in a tongue-in-cheek manner with my brother, but, colloquially, it’s “stuffing” around here, so far as I’ve noticed, whether it’s cooked in the turkey or not.
As for the turkey discussion, as much as I love smoking meat–and I do love smoking meat–Thanksgiving needs a regular roast turkey for me. I’ve done the smoked turkey, and while my family was very happy with it, it just didn’t feel right to me. High heat roast turkey all the way for me, although it’s been years since I got a chance to make Thanksgiving dinner (we’ve been going to my in-laws for the last five years or so, and you just don’t mess with someone else’s Thanksgiving routine. 
)
Here’s the high-heat method, BTW Cook at 500 all the way through. Best. Bird. Ever.
Do you use a convection oven? Also, do you get a lot of smoke? I cook all my chickens at 500 or 550, and I often have a problem with smoke in the kitchen.