Stuffing or dressing?
We do dressing. I won’t bore you with the not-so-special recipe for cornbread dressing we make. Just know it must be like Aunt Edna made or there will be adverse reactions from the peanut gallery.
I think it’s a conspiracy to make me work. “Oh, Ma you’re the only one who does it like Aunt Edna!”
Right. You just wanna cut into my lazin’ off time.
Our family has a recipe for both (cornbread dressing and wild rice stuffing) but the default is definitely the cornbread dressing.
You get lazin’ off time on Christmas? Lucky!
I’ve conned my son-in-law into cooking Christmas dinner, and he’s going to make Beef Wellington. So we’re not having stuffing OR dressing, but I’ve promised to do some sous cheffing and make some side dishes, so I won’t get to rest until Tuesday.
You’re having dressing stuffed with meat.
Neither, because as is our family tradition, we’ll be having smoked brisket. There’s nothing to stuff, and dressing seems like an odd side dish. So, we’ll be having chile mac 'n cheese, and cider slaw.
When we do have turkey, I make dressing. Specifically this recipe. It reminds me of my mother’s dressing, and actually improves on it:
https://parade.com/29095/elizabethmitchell/grandma-helens-cornbread-stuffing/
I’ll be doing a ham. The family had turkey at Thanksgiving, along with sauerbraten.
We’re boycotting Christmas this year, just don’t want all the holiday hassles. So we’re having barbecued ribs, potato salad, three bean salad, watermelon chunks, and s’mores.
Life is good.
What is this cornbread ‘dressing’ of which you speak? In my neck of the woods, a dressing is wet stuff that goes on a salad, please enlighten me.
Dressing is pretty much stuffing, only it’s baked seperately from the bird.
Nothing. Older brother and his family host Xmas. We just show up with gifts and have dinner. Don’t know what they’re going to serve. They’ve gone with prime rib most years but not always.
Cornbread dressing was, I believe, at one time what po’folks stuffed in poultry.
Here in the South it’s morphed into a casserole type dish of day old crumbled cornbread(the eggier the better) onion, celery, minced garlic, chopped boiled eggs all wetted with chicken broth that you’ve previously cooked chicken parts in… usually the thighs. If you’re fancy you might add the breast. And of course the giblets. Chop the meat up(ps-I add a thick slice of apple bacon) Slop it all together with raw eggs added, making sure the cornbread is very wet.
Bake in a casserole dish.
It can also be a regional distinction, not tied to how it’s cooked.
Here’s a Huff Post article:
Personally, I use the two terms interchangeably, but only cook it in the bird. I’ve never seen it cooked as a separate dish.
We have our own traditional holiday meals.
On Christmas Eve, it’s a lightly curried squash soup with sausage and pomegranate pips.
Chrismas Day dinner is a roast lamb with Middle Eastern spices (similar to Persian fesenjān), root vegetables and salad on the side.
Same here. “Stuffing” and “dressing” were the same thing, and often, the two terms would be used at family gatherings, where everybody knew they meant the same thing. And always cooked inside the bird; I’ve never heard of the dish, no matter which name it goes by, being cooked outside.
But I won’t worry this year about whether there’s a distinction or not. For me, this year, I’ve got a nice little ham.
Well here in Aus where we’ve just had the ‘once in a lifetime’ flood, we’re having baked ham with my sooper-sekret glaze, fresh prawns (shrimp) with various sauces to dunk them in, bean and almond salad, german potato salad (more bacon and eggs than potatoes really), a tomato and onion salad, crackers and umpteen cheeses, pates, various Greek stuff like olives, feta cheese and OMG, I feel stuffed already just writing about it. Urgghhh.
Damn, I forgot to mention…we’re not stuffing anything, and the DRESSING is going onto the potato salad and the green bean salad.
Prime rib here, with Yukon gold taters baked along with it.
Au jus , broccoli.
Cooking the stuffing separately from the turkey has been a growing trend. Here is a page detailing some very good reasons.
I don’t make stuffing often, but when I do, I make it outside the bird because it gives me the greatest amount of control over each of the two components.
Those are good reasons. Frankly, I never understood why stuffing/dressing was such a big deal. But then, I’m pretty much a meat and potatoes guy. Peas or carrots or similar on the side if you must insist, but stuffing/dressing is one of those things that I can take or leave. Just give me meat and potatoes, and I’m happy. No need for stuffing/dressing; it just gets in the way.
My brother hosts and plans the menu. In all the years he’s done this, there’s never been stuffing or dressing. At various times, there’s been pit beef, shrimp, sushi, and other things I can’t recall. No clue what he’s got planned this year. I’ll find out tomorrow.