Many Americans cook the stuffing inside their turkeys. Some find that it gets too mushy that way, and it can be prepared separately. Grandpa Neal has his own recipe, and since we go to his house for Thanksgiving, Lars’ recipe sees little use these days.
Prepare:
1 ℓ bread cubes
If these are not readily available in a packaged form, you can cut nearly any mild bread into ¾-cm cubes, and place in a 100-degree oven for 2 hours, or until the cubes are dry and crisp.
Start by slicing into small pieces:
¼ kg of bacon
Dice:
1 onion
2-3 stalks celery
Slice:
250 ml mushrooms
Fry the bacon until it’s crisp, then remove it from the pan to drain, but reserve the bacon fat in the pan.
In bacon fat, one at a time, next fry sliced celery (until tender), then onion (until clear), finally mushrooms. Be sure you remove each one from the pan before starting to fry the next item. When mushrooms are golden and soft, put all the bacon, onion, and celery back into the pan and add the herbs to taste. I found that I put a lot of fresh herbs in – probably a good 50 ml of each.
When all ingredients are mixed, warmed and aromatic, combine this with bread cubes in a large bowl. Stir them all together. Add approximately 125-250 cups of broth with 60 g melted butter. (You want to add enough broth to soften all of the bread cubes, without making them soggy.) Stir well, add salt and pepper to taste. Bake in oven at 175 for about 20 minutes, until heated through.