stuffing stuffz

Prep ingredients as above.

Cut stale bread into thin slices, then cut again so you’ve got thin matchsticks. Put them into the biggest mixing bowl you own. Put a knob of butter and a slug of olive oil into your rice pan, on high heat. When it bubbles, add the wild rice ONLY and fry it until a proportion of the grains have ‘popped’.

Use one mugful of stock and one of water in the pan; add salt and when the mix boils, turn the heat right down and after 30 minutes it will be ready for the addition of the Basmati rice. Add two mugs of water to the rice mix and turn up the heat. When the mix boils, turn the heat back down for 20 minutes. Put all the rice into the bowl with the breadcrumbs.

When the rice cooks, you can multitask. You need one frying pan and you won’t be washing it between steps because you want a well-seasoned pan.

Put a knob of butter and slug of olive oil into a frying pan for the garlic and onions. Add a quarter of the garlic first and when it starts to go golden, add the carrots and celery, allowing these to soften before adding the onions and caramelizing the lot. Add herbs at the end for aromatics and tip this mix into the big bowl. Use the pan to fry off the pancetta until the fat is browned. Add to the bowl.

Finely dice all the Chestnut mushrooms and gently fry them in another quarter of garlic and butter. Add a cup of chicken stock and the glass of wine to the mix and let it reduce on a lower heat. When done, into the bowl (again).

To fry off the sausage, make sure it’s the consistency of mince in the pan (with a couple of sausage-on-pizza size chunks) and make sure it gets quite browned. If you have giblets, dice them and fry with the sausage. Add these to the bowl when done. Finally, grind black pepper generously so it dusts the top of the bowl.

Time to mix. To hell with spoons, I tend to do this with freshly washed hands. For some reason all the ingredients fit in this bowl even though it seems like they won’t along the way. There is plenty of moisture in the ingredients.

If you’re using a casserole pan, slice Portobello mushrooms and fry them in butter. Cram the stuffing into a large pan and stud the top with fried mushrooms.

This stuffing can go in a 175C oven in a casserole dish of any kind for 30-40 minutes and be fabulous but it’s even better when you actually use it to stuff a turkey. In that case, just try to get as much as you can in the neck cavity with a smaller casserole dish on hand for seconds. Just don’t put stuffing in the bird’s trunk if you want turkey in a hurry.