Stuffing the Bird

Submitted by John DOH

"This started from my Mom, a superb "scratch" cook, who could make something from nothing, and carried on through better than 25 years of "tweaking" with her starting recipe. Based on a 16 lb turkey Note to use very fresh spice! Not the old stuff opened more than three months ago! Note I use "12 Grain Bread", quantity "1 loaf", that I can't quite get through the Ingredient List here!"

 

• Ready In: 3hrs
• Ingredients: 14
• Serves: 8

ingredients

• 1 turkey neck
• 1 turkey gizzard
• 1 turkey heart
• 1 turkey liver
• 16 ounces multigrain bread, staled
• 4 ounces olive oil
• 1 medium onion
• 1 tablespoon sage or 1 tablespoon poultry seasoning
• 1 cup all-bran cereal
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 celery rib, finely diced
• 2 tablespoons soya sauce
• 4 tablespoons chopped garlic
• 1⁄3 cup grated walnuts

directions

1. The night before, carefully cube the bread, cutting away all the crusts (and feeding the crusts to your neighbourhood songbirds and squirrels-its Christmas for them, too!).
2. Place the chicken stock in a pot, and carefully simmer half the garlic and the heart, gizzard and neck meat for 20 minutes. Add the liver, and simmer 20 minutes more.
3. Remove from heat, preserve the liquid, strip the meat from the neck, and cut away the meat from the viscera of the gizzard, discarding the viscera. Mince the meat to a fine paste, using reserved stock if or as necessary.
4. Dice onion and celery finely. Heat olive oil in a pan and saute them and balance of garlic until tender, and remove from heat.
5. Add seaoning, nut meal, minced neck, giblets,and soya sauce, stirring together well.
6. Place bread bits and Bran in a bowl, and evacuate sauteed bits into the breading, mixing well.
7. Moistenm with reserved stock until the mix is "damp" but not "soggy".
8. Stuff into the bird's gut and neck cavity. Do notbe afraid to compress the mix "slightly", contrary to urban legend, the bird will not "explode", you'llsimply have some stuffing leak forward from the gut, where it will brown quite nicely!
9. Cook your turkey until the breast meat and stuffing are about 155 degrees, and the dark meat is about 170 degrees, and remove from the oven. Evacuate the stuffing immediately and cover with foil.

Reviews

[becky watkins]

Absolutely terrific, John!! Love, Becky