Herbed Cornbread Dressing, Part 2 Of 2

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

Continued from Part 1  MAKE DRESSING:  30 minutes before you are ready
to stuff the turkey,  make the dressing.  Crumble the stale cornbread
in the very largest bowl you can find.  Add the herbed bread cubes and
mix thoroughly by hand. Add the rice  and mix thoroughly by hand.
Briefly saute the onions and celery in butter just enough to make the
vegetables translucent.  Saute the mushrooms in butter (or margarine)
until all the resulting liquid has evaporated. Add the sauteed  onions,
celery and mushrooms, and mix thoroughly. Add the pecans and  mix
thoroughly. Season with salt, pepper, sage and thyme to taste.  Bring
the turkey broth to the boil and boil for a minute or two to  make sure
it is sterile. If you are going to stuff the turkey, add  just enough
turkey broth to barely moisten the dressing. Taste for  seasoning and
adjust if necessary.  Very loosely stuff the abdominal cavity and
breast cavity with  dressing. Do not pack it in tightly.  It needs room
to expand. You  are going to be cooking some more dressing in a baking
pan beside the  turkey, so there will be plenty to go around.  Secure
neck cavity opening with one or more poultry skewers. The  abdominal
cavity may be left open or (if your butcher cleaned the  turkey
properly and left a flap of skin) secured with poultry skewers.  Add
enough boiling broth to the remaining dressing to moisten it
uniformly. Do not over-moisten.  The baked dressing should be barely
moist, not gummy-wet.  14 Spoon dressing into uncoated baking pans.
Cover with foil/plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to bake.  One
half hour before serving dinner, bake dressing, uncovered, at 425
degrees F. for 30 minutes.  NOTES    Southwestern style herbed
cornbread turkey stuffing ~- This is the  traditional McGarvey family
dressing for Thanksgiving and Christmas  dinner. It originated with my
maternal grandmother in southern  Virginia and evolved through her
moves to Texas, Oklahoma and  California and further evolved through my
military family's moves all  over the world. The recipe includes making
1 batch of cornbread and 1  batch of turkey broth. Directions are given
for both stuffing the  bird and baking the dressing separately.    This
recipe makes enough dressing to stuff a 15-pound turkey and 2
9-inch-square baking pans.    Never stuff the turkey until you are
ready to roast it. Cooking  lore is rife with horror stories of food
poisoning resulting from  turkeys stuffed too early and let sit while
wonderful organisms  develop in the stuffing. Make sure you bring the
turkey broth to a  boil before you use it, just to make sure that
nothing is growing in  it. The stuffing inside a turkey does not reach
a high enough  temperature to kill bacteria while the turkey is
roasting, so you  must be extremely careful with what you put there.  
I like to use Pepperidge Farm brand herbed bread cubes.    I use a huge
ceramic bowl (large enough for "rising" a 4-loaf  recipe of bread
dough) in which  to mix the dressing. If you don't  have one handy, you
can use your kitchen sink. Clean and rinse the  sink thoroughly, then
put in the stopper and use as a mixing bowl. If  you are going to stuff
the turkey, be sure that you don't overmoisten  the dressing. The
stuffing will absorb a lot of moisture from the  bird, and who wants a
turkey with stuffing soup? Also, be sure to not  over-stuff the turkey:
the stuffing will expand during the roasting  and it needs room to
expand.    About 12 C of turkey broth is at least double the amount of
liquid  necessary to moisten the dressing. If you use all of it, you
will not  have a relatively light, dry dressing. The extra broth should
be used  in making turkey gravy or can be the base stock for making
turkey  soup with the carcass. If you're not up to making turkey broth,
you  can substitute chicken broth, but this is a great way to use the
neck  and gizzard.    No quantities of the herbs are given because you
can make this as  spicy or as mild as you like. We like ours heavy on
the sage and  thyme. : Difficulty:  moderate.  : Time:  several hours,
spread over 2 days.  : Precision:  measure the cornbread ingredients.
: Pamela McGarvey  : UCLA Comprehensive Epilepsy Program, Los Angeles,
Calif., USA  : {ihnp4!sdcrdcf,ucbvax!ucla-cs,hao}!cepu!pam  : Copyright
(C) 1986 USENET Community Trust  From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster
collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini

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