| Moist Bit |
| 2 | eggs |
| Great quantities of the best turkey stock you can get your hands on. Made with roasted wings and necks, onions, celery, carrots, garlic, herbs, and peppercorns and simmered for six hours is best. My mom, however, just simmers a few turkey necks with a couple of onions in low sodium Swanson chicken broth. Mine is better, her's is not bad. |
| Aromatics Bit |
| 2 | nice size onions, finely chopped |
| 5 | ish stalks celery, finely chopped (same quantity as the onions) |
| 6 | cloves garlic minced |
| 6 | tbl (or more!) butter |
| 1 | bunch parsley, finely chopped |
| 10 to 15 | ish fresh sage leaves, minced (about 1.5 tbl) |
| 10 | sprigs thyme, minced (about 1.5 tbl) |
| 3 | sprigs rosemary, minced (about 1 tbl) |
| OPTIONAL: about 1 tsp. bottled poultry seasoning |
| Bread Bit |
| 1 | pan (proper, not sweet, not yankee) cornbread Recipe: http://bit.ly/SyZW3S |
| 1 | large loaf grocery store "french" bread (without a hard crust) |
| 1 | sleeve saltine crackers or a few stale biscuits, optional. |
| Makes one 9x13 inch pan. |
| 1. | Melt the butter over medium low heat. Add the onions, celery, and garlic and sprinkle with salt. Slowly, ever so slowly sweat the vegetables until they are very soft, but don't let them brown. This isn't a sautee; there should be quite a lot of moisture in the pan. They will reduce in mass quite a bit. This may take as long as 20 minutes. When it's basically cooked, add all the chopped herbs and poultry seasoning if using and cook a minute or so until fragrant. |
| 2. | Crumble the bread and cornbread quite finely into your baking dish (and the saltines or biscuits, if using). It doesn't need to be dust, but you don't want chunks bigger than maybe the end of your finger. You want equal quantities, and each set of crumbles should fill half the dish. |
| 3. | In the baking dish or the biggest bowl you've got, stir the sauteed aromatics with the bread. Season with salt and pepper. Start adding stock. You'll need lots. It should be much moister than you think. If you can still make a ball of bread that holds together, there isn't enough liquid. The mixture shouldn't be pourable, but it should be close. Maybe oatmeal texture or thereabouts. Now have a little taste to see if it's salty enough. Bland dressing is a misery. |
| 4. | Now add in both eggs and mix everything together gently but thoroughly. Get your hands in there and make a bit of a mess. Put everything into the baking dish and cook at around 400 degrees for about an hour until it's slightly puffed, firm but still moist, and brown on top. Spoon a bit from the corner and have a taste if you aren't sure if it's done. If it starts to brown too fast, cover with foil. If it gets too dry, dribble over extra stock. The cool this is that you can basically cook it at anywhere from 325 to 425 degrees if you've got anything else in the oven cooking at that temperature. It just takes longer at a lower temp. |