Stuffing

This is basic onion & herb stuffing for poultry. We call it stuffing, even though we rarely actually stuff the bird with it. I think it's supposed to be called dressing when you do this, but old habits are hard to break.

First, the bread. Plain white bread. Cheap Wonderbread type bread is too spongy and will make a soggy stuffing, and dense artisan loaves like ciabatta will be too tough. A nice medium is a bakery white loaf. My favourite is Safeway's Dutch Crunch bread. Note that it's a 600 gram loaf - the fluffier loaves were in the 400 gram range.

Tear into small pieces and bake at 300F for about 10 minutes. This dries it out so it can soak up the liquid mixture.

Cast of characters. Butter, chicken broth, onion, celery, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. There's both fresh herbs and dried here. 

Chop up two onions.

And about 4 stalks of celery. This was too much and I ended up using a stalk or two as celery sticks.

Melt about 1/2 cup of butter in a large pan. Saute the onion on medium high heat until it starts to soften, then add the celery and continue to cook. Once the onion and celery have softened, add in about 3 cups of chicken broth. Reserve the rest of the carton  in case you need it to finish wetting the stuffing.

Chop your fresh herbs. This is about a tablespoon of rosemary. There was about the same amount of sage. 

You can strip the little leaves off the thyme, but sometimes if it's all attached as one little intact tree, I put the whole thing in to season the liquid, then pull it out after it's boiled and simmered a bit. Add 2 tsp dried sage and 1 tsp dried thyme.

Bring everything to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes. Pull out the thyme branches if you put it in whole.

Then put about 1/3 of your toasted bread cubes into a large mixing bowl and start ladling on the liquid. Moisten lightly, then add more bread, add more liquid, and so on until all the bread is used up.

Just about done. I forgot to take pictures, but at this stage I also added a couple of handfuls of chopped parsley. You want the bread well moistened but not soggy. If you run out of the liquid mixture, add some of the reserved chicken broth.

Now take another chunk of butter. This is about a scant quarter cup.

And start layering the stuffing in the baking pan. First take a chunk of butter and grease the bottom and sides of the pan. Then put about a third of the bread mixture in and dot with butter. Continue the layering, finishing with dotted butter.

If you have stray chicken/turkey bits that aren't going to get eaten, like this backbone here, or wing tips or neck, lay it on top. This makes it taste a bit like it was cooked inside the bird.

Cover with foil and bake at 375F for about an hour. If there's raw poultry in there, make sure it's very well cooked so you know any juices that dripped into the stuffing are cooked too. You can remove the foil for the last 15 minutes if you like a crunchy top.

Herb and Onion Stuffing

1 loaf white bread, torn into cubes
3/4 cup butter, divided
2 medium to large onions, diced
4 stalks celery, diced
Fresh herbs - poultry mix. Or buy sage, thyme, and rosemary separately
1 small bunch parsley
1 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp dried sage
1 carton chicken broth, divided

Toast bread cubes in 300F oven for about 10 minutes. Set aside to cool. Melt 1/2 cup of butter on medium high heat. Add onions and cook until starting to soften. Add celery continue to cook until softened. Add 3 cups of chicken broth and fresh and dried herbs. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Take off heat and start ladling liquid mixture into bread cubes in large mixing bowl. This is easier if you put in 1/3 of the bread in at a time. Stir in a couple of handfuls of chopped parsley.

Cut a scant 1/4 cup of butter. Use a bit to butter the bottom and sides of a heavy baking dish. Put 1/3 of the stuffing mixture into the pan then dot with 1/3 of the butter. Repeat, ending with butter. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes at 375. Uncover and bake until crispy on top.