CORNBREAD-STUF(V) USENET Cookbook CORNBREAD-STUF(V)
HERBED CORNBREAD DRESSING
CORNBREAD-STUF - 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.
INGREDIENTS (Serves 8)
CORNBREAD
1 1/2 cups
yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp baking powder
1 egg (lightly beaten)
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup milk
vegetable oil
TURKEY BROTH
1 turkey neck (skin removed)
giblets and gizzard from 1 turkey
leaves from 4 celery stalks
1 celery stalk
1 quartered small onion
12 cups water
DRESSING
12 oz herbed bread cubes
1 large yellow onion, chopped fine
3 celery stalks (chopped fine)
3 cups cooked rice (cooled uncovered overnight in a shal-
low dish)
1/2 lb sliced mushrooms
2 cup roughly chopped pecans
butter or margarine
salt
black pepper
rubbed sage
thyme
PROCEDURE (CORNBREAD)
(1) The night before, make the cornbread. Preheat
oven to 425 deg. F.
(2) Thinly coat the bottom of a standard Pyrex pie
plate, or 9-inch square baking pan, with vegetable
oil. Put pan in oven while it is preheating and
you are mixing the cornbread batter.
(3) In a mixing bowl, blend together the cornmeal,
flour, salt, and baking powder.
(4) Stir in the egg and 3 Tbsp vegetable oil.
(5) Add milk and mix thoroughly by hand. The con-
sistency should be a thick, but not "doughy",
liquid. It may be necessary to add a little more
milk.
(6) Pour into preheated pan and bake for 30 minutes or
until slightly brown on top.
(7) Let cool in pan for 30 minutes. Remove from pan
and break up into very large chunks in a large
mixing bowl.
(8) Let stand overnight, uncovered. This will ensure
that it is dry and stale.
PROCEDURE (TURKEY BROTH)
The night before, make the turkey broth.
(1) Bring 12 cups of water to a boil in a large pot.
(2) Thoroughly rinse turkey neck, giblets and gizzard.
(3) Add turkey parts, onion, celery leaves and celery
stalk to water, cover, and reduce heat to a low
simmer.
(4) Simmer on very low heat for 2 hours.
(5) Strain the broth, cover, cool quickly, and refri-
gerate.
PROCEDURE (DRESSING)
30 minutes before you are ready to stuff the turkey,
make the dressing.
(1) Crumble the stale cornbread in the very largest
bowl you can find.
(2) Add the herbed bread cubes and mix thoroughly by
hand.
(3) Add the rice and mix thoroughly by hand.
(4) Briefly sauté the onions and celery in butter just
enough to make the vegetables translucent.
(5) Sauté the mushrooms in butter or margarine until
all the resulting liquid has evaporated.
(6) Add the sautéed onions, celery, and mushrooms, and
mix thoroughly.
(7) Add the pecans and mix thoroughly.
(8) Season with salt, pepper, sage and thyme to taste.
(9) 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.
(10) Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.
(11) 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 cook-
ing some more dressing in a baking pan beside the
turkey, so there will be plenty to go around.
(12) Secure neck cavity opening with one or more poul-
try skewers. The abdominal cavity may be left
open or (if your butcher cleaned the turkey prop-
erly and left a flap of skin) secured with poultry
skewers.
(13) 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.
(15) One half hour before serving dinner, bake dress-
ing, uncovered, at 425 deg. F for 30 minutes.
NOTES
This recipe makes enough dressing to stuff a 15-pound turkey
and fill 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.
12 cups 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.
RATING
Difficulty: moderate. Time: several hours, spread over 2
days. Precision: measure the cornbread ingredients.
CONTRIBUTOR
Pamela McGarvey
UCLA Comprehensive Epilepsy Program, Los Angeles, Calif., USA
{ihnp4!sdcrdcf,ucbvax!ucla-cs,hao}!cepu!pam
From: lat@druil (Larry Tepper)
Newsgroups: mod.recipes
Subject: RECIPE: Incredible crab or shrimp dip
Date: 30 Nov 85 10:36:37 GMT
Organization: Stanford University, Computer Systems Laboratory
Approved: reid@glacier.UUCP
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