Herbed Cornbread Dressing, Part 2 Of 2

---------- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.02

Title: HERBED CORNBREAD DRESSING, PART 2 OF 2
Categories: Entrees, Southwest, Holiday, Herbs, Usenet
Yield: 8 servings

See Part 1

: 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

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