Sunday, October 19, 2008

Nana's Turkey and Stuffing


Lay out 1 1/4 loaves of white bread on cookie sheets and let the slices dry overnight. Turn them over if you think about it.



Also the night before (to make things go faster in the morning) chop up two big onions and at least 6 stalks of celery. Saute both in about ½ cup of butter in a big pan. Add 2 cups of water and 1 heaping TBSP of chicken soup base (you can substitute chicken broth) and simmer 2-3 min. Let cool and then add 3 eggs and mix well. Pour this into a big pitcher and put in the fridge until morning.



Stack the bread 4 slices deep and slice into long ½ inch thick slices. Dump those in a bowl to be hand torn into pieces (to keep the kids busy and involved: you can also just cut them into cubes with a knife). Divide the bread between two big bowls (to give you room to stir and lift the bread). Sprinkle the bread very generously with sage, generously with thyme and dried parsley, less generously with black pepper. If the bread is so dry the spices won’t stick, you can spritz it with a bit of water.

Slowly pour about ¼ of the celery/onion/egg/broth mixture over the seasoned bread in each bowl and mix well; if the bread is still really dry, repeat. If the bread is fairly moist, pour off some of the liquid and add the rest of the onions and celery to the bread. You want the bread to be moist enough to hold together, but not soggy.




Meanwhile, wash out the thawed turkey (be sure to remove the neck and giblets!) and tip it so the inside drips dry. Start at the head end (the smaller cavity) and fill with stuffing. Slide thin slices of sacrificial apple or potato between the skin and the stuffing (so the stuffing won’t burn). Use thread (about 4 strands in a big needle) and sew the skin closed or use big poultry pins to secure the skin.



Turn the bird over and fill the bigger cavity. Place slices of apple/potato over the exposed stuffing.



Hook the legs back together (usually there is a plastic leg holder on the turkey already. If not, use thread to lash the legs together). Set the bird on a rack in the roasting pan. I then like to pull the wings up and stitch thru the tips, leaving about 4 inches of thread between the wings resting on the breast of the turkey. This keeps the wings from touching the sides of the pan and burning.

Baste the turkey if you want to and bake it. I preheat the oven to 375 then turn it down to 325 and cook it longer than recommended since it is at a lower temp. You may want to cover the breast, wings and legs with foil the last hour to keep them from overcooking.



These amounts are for a 12-14 lb turkey. Leftover stuffing gets put in a foil lined pan and is wrapped in the foil like a tin foil dinner. Bake it for only one hour, not the whole time the turkey is baked.

I find I like fresh turkey, rather than frozen. If you brine a thawed out frozen turkey, that is good and moist as well.

2 comments:

Karen Ahlstrom said...

For doing it in a pan, put a layer of sacrificial apples or onions or something under it so it doesn’t burn. I used the wide ends of the celery I cut.

Wrap it in aluminum foil like a TV dinner to keep it moist.

Make sure to cool down the celery and onions after sautéing them so that when you add the eggs, they don’t get immediately cooked. This is a reason to start the night before.

If the spices don’t stick to the bread, spray it with a little water. Would it work to put the spices on before drying the bread?

If you forget to dry the bread, put it on a cookie sheet in the oven for 10 minutes on 250, then turn it over and do another ten minutes on the other side.

Cook at 325 for an hour-you can put it in with the turkey for its last hour if you want them to come out at the same time.

Karen Ahlstrom said...

Nobody in our house likes (or is able to eat) the stuffing except me, so I need to make a smaller batch. I used:

6 slices of bread
2/3 onion
2 stalks of celery (about the same amount of onion and celery)
A good amount of butter for sautéing in
1 teaspoon of soup base and enough water to make the mixture a little bit soupy
1 egg

Spices: parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme😉