Turkey Stuffing
This you can make the night before. You will need lots of breadcrumbs, I’m not a total homemadey nutter so you can buy these. Use two bags.
Ingredients
- Breadcrumbs
- 2 large onions
- 2 heads of celery (this may seem like way way too much, it’s not, so don’t adjust this, this amount of celery will melt down over the hours of cooking and will make your stuffing so flavoursome and moist. ) Dice this finely.
- Rind of one lemon and 1 tablespoon of it’s juice
- Fresh Thyme leaves, chopped
- 2 medium size carrots, grated
- Some of the cooked ham, cut into little chunks, or ground. My Dad used to grind this using one of those old metal meat grinders that screw on to the table. And one of my fondest Christmas memories is of Christmas Eve and dad in his shirt and tie and a ladies house coat, sitting at the table, his glasses low down on his nose, making this stuffing, and maybe having a whiskey. I digress…back to the order of the day, The VIKING mixer has one of these meat grinder attachments and if you don’t have one for this year, order it for next. It’s an invaluable piece of equipment, great for making your own fresh mince, and grinding the turkey for the inexplicably lovely Turkey Shepherds Pie made from the left overs…
- A handful of fresh cranberries
- A handful of chopped pecans (ok so neither of these are too traditional but they do make it a bit more interesting)
- 5 rashers of bacon (as always use good bacon, use Ummera or Gubeen, it’ll be worth it, but use green bacon here and not smoked, the smoked would be too overpowering, and you can use the rest of it then for covering and protecting your bird)
- Large handful of chopped fresh parsley
- Butter (salted) about 300g ! And don’t try to use any less, you’ll ruin this stuffing.
- Fresh ground WHITE pepper, you won’t need to use salt, the butter is salty enough, as is the ham and the bacon rashers.
Method
Chop up the rashers of bacon into little lardons and cook gently in a sauté pan to release the fat. The remove the bacon from the pan. Throw in about 50g of the butter and when bubbling add the onions and the celery. Make a paper lid or cartouche and cover the gently sautéing vegetables.
When the onion and celery are seethrough, through in the rest of the butter and remove the pan from the heat.
In a large mixing bowl, mix all the ingredients, and add the melted butter, onions, and celery and the bacon.
And that’s it. So easy. Let it rest and cool, the butter will be hot. And certainly, don’t stuff the turkey with it until it has cooled. You’ll want both the turkey and the stuffing at room temperature at the time of stuffing.
