Recipe for "cornbread-stuf"

NAME

     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
     250 g     yellow cornmeal
               all-purpose flour
     5 ml      salt
     10 ml     baking powder
     1         egg (lightly beaten)
     50 ml     vegetable oil
     250 ml    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
     3 l       water
          DRESSING
     350 g     herbed bread cubes
     1         large yellow onion, chopped fine
     3         celery stalks (chopped fine)
     500 g     cooked rice (cooled uncovered overnight in a shal-
               low dish)
     250 g     sliced mushrooms
     250 g     roughly chopped pecans
               butter or margarine
               salt
               black pepper
               rubbed sage
               thyme

PROCEDURE (CORNBREAD)

          (1)  The night before,  make  the  cornbread.   Preheat
               oven to 220 deg. C.
          (2)  Thinly coat the bottom of  a  standard  Pyrex  pie
               plate,  or 22-cm 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 50 ml 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 3 l 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 saute the onions and celery in butter just
               enough to make the vegetables translucent.
          (5)  Saute the mushrooms in butter or  margarine  until
               all the resulting liquid has evaporated.
          (6)  Add the sauteed 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 220 deg. C for 30 minutes.

NOTES

     This recipe makes enough dressing to stuff a 7-kg turkey and
     fill 2 22-cm-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.
     3 liters 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
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