[sub]Due to snide insinuations that I couldn’t find stuffing with both hands and a flashlight, I will now subject all of you to my stuffing recipe for a third time![/sub]
Triple Sausage, Red Wine and Sourdough Stuffing
Stolen from Jim Newman in 1978
Preparation time: 2 Hours
Serves: 6-12 People
Ingredients:
2 Lbs. Chicken or turkey giblets
1 12 oz. Package of Jimmy Dean Sage Recipe Sausage*
1 12 oz. Package of Hillshire Farms Li’l Smokies*
2 6 oz. Packages of Swift’s Premium Beef Link Sausages*
2 12 oz. Packages of Thomas’ Sourdough English Muffins*
2 Loaves Sourdough French bread
2 Large eggs
1/2-1 Lb. Button mushrooms
4 Cloves Garlic
4 Shallots
3-4 Ribs Celery (plus leaves)
2 Cubes Butter
1-2 Yellow onions
1-2 Tsp Salt
1 Bottle Red wine
1 Tsp Ground celery seed
1 Tsp Ground sage
1 Tsp Ground thyme
1 Tsp Whole peppercorns
1 Bunch Parsley
1/2 Tsp Ground black pepper
Dash of Crystal hot sauce*
- Do not substitute these products
Preparation:
Make the croutons:
The croutons may be made days in advance if needed. I used English muffin croutons last year and they added an extra dimension of richness and texture to this already fantastic recipe. Preheat your oven to 250 F for twenty minutes. Cut the bread and muffins into cubes smaller than a 1/2". Cover a cookie sheet with a thin layer of bread cubes and bake until they begin to brown slightly. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before storing. Continue until all of the bread is used.
Make giblet stock:
Cook the giblets and those from the bird, including the neck, heart and gizzard in a large pot with 1-2 quarts if water and a tablespoon of salt. Do not use the liver when making the stock, it will darken the flavor in an undesirable fashion. Feel free to add a clove of garlic, a spoonful of chopped onion and the peppercorns to the broth. Reduce over a fast simmer until a few cups of liquid are left. If the giblets are very tender after cooking, some of them may be chopped up and used in the stuffing. Tinned chicken broth may be substituted but it will not have the rich flavor of freshly made stock. Strain off the stock and reserve it for later use.
Cook off the sausages:
This may be done the day before. Crumble the Jimmy Dean sausage into pieces the size of your finger tip and fry until golden brown. Remove the fried sausage and add the whole Swift’s Premium link sausages to the grease and fry until browned. When draining any of the sausages, do not press down on them as this will leave them too dry. The little smokies should not be cooked before hand or they will lose a lot of their moisture. When the sausage is finished cooking, drain off the grease and add the red wine. Use a good quality wine. A zinfandel like Ravenswood Vintner’s Blend or Sutter Home will do nicely. Reduce the wine to half its volume so that you have about two cups remaining. While the wine reduces, scrape the pan in order to deglaze it. Pour off the wine and reserve it for future use.
Prepare the stuffing:
Preheat a pan over medium heat and add half a stick of butter. Slice the mushrooms thinly and add to the pan. Continue to cook the mushrooms until they have released a lot of liquid. Pour off this liquid and reserve it for later use. Add more butter or broth to the mushrooms and continue to saute until lightly browned. While the mushrooms cook, parboil the celery. I am of the school that believes stuffing should not have really crunchy items in it. When prepping the celery, detach a rib from the bunch. Grasp the leafy top of the rib and bend backwards to snap it. Then pull down along the back of the rib to remove the strings from it. Chop the ribs into medium thin slices and parboil them. Use some of the giblet stock to cook the celery briefly until it loses its crispness. Be sure to add some of the leaves from the heart of the celery bunch. They will carry a delightful perfume into the stuffing.
Once the mushrooms are finished cooking, transfer them into a very large bowl. Peel and chop the shallots and onions. Place them in the frying pan with a little butter if needed. Cook them until they are translucent and then add the chopped or crushed garlic. Do not brown the onions or the garlic, this will ruin the stuffing. In the large bowl begin to add the other ingredients. Chop the link sausage and add it to the mushrooms with the crumbled sausage. Chop the parsley and add it too. Once the onions, shallots and garlic are finished add them to the bowl as well. Add the spices and fold the mixture to distribute them. Include a little over half of the little smokie links whole and continue to mix. Avoid breaking up the sausage too much.
You are now ready to add the croutons. Before doing so, crack the eggs into a small bowl and beat them well. Fold the croutons into the mixture and be careful to avoid breaking up the ingredients too much. Combine the reduced red wine with a cube of melted butter, 2 cups of the giblet stock and the liquid from the mushrooms. Drizzle this over the stuffing until everything evenly moisturized. At this point, the stuffing may be held at room temperature for a few hours if needed. If you add the eggs to bind it, you must begin cooking it right away. I do not recommend refrigerating the stuffing as this congeals it and can add an undesirable density it.
After binding the stuffing with the eggs, wipe the interior of an over proof pot with melted butter or oil. Fill it with the stuffing but avoid packing it down in any way. If needed, use two pots to accomplish this. Bake for ~30-45 minutes covered and then remove the lid and allow it to brown for another fifteen minutes. Dot the surface with bits of butter during the browning for the best results.
Note: I do not recommend filling the bird with stuffing. Too often, the juices of the bird will make the stuffing soggy and leaden. For the best results, rub the exterior and interior of the bird with a mixture of salt, pepper, ground thyme, ground sage, garlic and onion powder plus ground celery seed. Before cooking the bird fill the cavity with one or two peeled potatoes, onions, shallots, cloves of garlic and ribs of celery or the celery heart. If you have used fresh herbs, feel free to toss in a small bouquet of them as well. These ingredients will perfume the bird while it roasts and the cooking time will be shorter due to the lack of filling.
Turkey Hints: Buy a hen turkey, they are moister. Always baste the bird with butter. Be sure to squirt some of the basting liquid into the cavity every so often. Keep the bird tightly covered until the last half hour of roasting. Remove the foil and increase the heat by 25-50 degrees F. Baste it frequently during the final hour.
Be sure to allow the turkey to rest for a minimum of 20 minutes before carving it. This allows the bird to reabsorb the juices that were released during the roasting process. While the bird rests, use the pan drippings to make the gravy and finish baking the stuffing. When carving the bird, do not miss the “oysters”. They are underneath the bird, in between the legs and the body along the back. These two small pieces of meat have the very finest flavor of any cut from the entire fowl.
This recipe continues to receive rave reviews from all who taste it. Last year, people who did not even like stuffing tried this and were instantly won over. If you are pressed for time on the big day, merely make the ingredients ahead of time as the recipe suggests. I have done this quite often and the end product does not suffer in the least.
Maybe drop in on my sister, make her do all the work.