Something Delicious

[Bit]

Originally Posted by Sun

How do you do your stuffing?

The totally old-fashioned way.

Start with two big (24 oz) loaves of bread, torn into pieces the day before and set out in the turkey roaster to dry, cuz nuthin else is big enough to hold all that bread.

In a skillet, melt a stick of butter (yes, butter). Chop in a BIG onion and a stalk of celery--no no, not a STICK, the whole thing. That's right. Now let them cook down for a while. Onion cooked? Good. Put the dry bread into the biggest bowl you've got. Pour the sizzling hot butter all over the bread and mix it in--sorry about the burn, next time use a spoon.... Hm. Not enough, huh? Get a two cup measure full of water and pour it in a little at a time, mixing as you go (you can use your hands now, it'll be faster). Mix in the seasonings as you go: sage (loads of it), thyme (lots of it), pepper (eh, not so much, okay?). Keep mixing. If you couldn't get all the bread in the bowl at first, add it in now.

When the stuffing is packable, put the (empty, remember to pull out the giblets!) turkey on the rack in the roaster, undo the plastic gizmo that holds the legs together and start packing the body cavity full of stuffing... no honey, FULL. Cram that stuffing in there. Okay, now stuff the neck cavity the same way and pull the skin underneath it to hold it in. Yeah, it rips sometimes--don't worry about that. Any stuffing that lands in the drippings will just make the gravy better.

Still got stuffing left? Whoo hoo! Pack it all along the drumsticks, between them and the body. Make sure you put the gizmo back before you mound more stuffing between the drumsticks also; a goodly amount should be able to rest on them so that you have that classic "stuffing popping out of the bird" look.

Pop the lid on your roaster and put the bird in the oven at 250 overnight. Oh I know, but you see, I don't buy Butterball turkeys so I feel totally free to ignore their advice. I'm telling you, thawed 22 pounder crammed to the gills with stuffing: 250, overnight. If you put it in at midnight, you'll be having turkey between 10 a.m. and noon, and never a case of food poisoning in the thirty years I've been doing it this way. You might like to take the lid off the roaster and baste the bird for the last hour or so to get a crackly skin.