If you are looking for a stuffing recipe for your Thanksgiving dinner, consider this one. It is a celebration of harvest and gathering with flavors, textures and colors.
You need to select good sausage, one with some fat and good flavors in it. If you are missing one or two ingredients, it will still work. The amount of each ingredient is not critical.
Ingredients (for 4 people):
1 cup of sausage (remove casing, split into quarters and dice)
Group 1:
1 head of shallot (finely dice)
1 stem of green onion (finely cross cut)
1.25 cup of celery (dice into roughly 3/8” cubes)
0.75 cup of carrots (dice into roughly 3/8” cubes)
0.5 cup of white mushroom (dice into roughly 3/8” cubes)
0.5 cup of corn kernel (defrosted)
Group 2:
1 cup of Chinese flat bread (发面饼; you can use flatbed bread, naan; cut into 3/4” diamond)
4 cups of cooked rice
0.25 cup of dried cranberry (soaked in sparkling wine for at least 1 hour)
0.25 cup of pine nut (raw)
0.25 cup of pecan (raw, break into small pieces, similar size to pine nut)
0.25 cup of chestnut (cooked, diced)
Misc:
Olive oil
Salt
Chicken stock
You need to make this stuffing to go with your main protein. If it is turkey cooked according to a traditional recipe, it is likely that you use rosemary, sage, thyme and parsley. You can save small amount of each for this dish. I typically use
1 teaspoon of sage (2-3 leaves finely chopped)
1 teaspoon of thyme (leaves pulled off stems)
It you want to go in oriental direction, use small amount of chives or cilantro. Even if you do not use any more spices, this will still be a good stuffing.
Directions:
1) Cook 2 cups of white rice in a rice cooker in advance (we need 4 cups of cooked rice)
2) Prepare other ingredients as instructed or as you please
3) Set oven to bake at 300F for 20 minutes, and heat up oven
4) Heat up a large fry pan on medium low heat
5) Add 2 tbsp of olive oil
6) Drop the sausage and saute until the fat begins to render
7) Drop green onion, shallot, mushroom, celery, carrots, and corn kernel (Group 1); add 1 teaspoon of salt
8) Turn up heat to medium or medium high
9) Cook for about 7-10 minutes (until celery and carrots begin to lose raw texture); add chicken stock if necessary.
10) Add cooked rice (4 cups), flat bread, cranberry (stain off the sparkling wine), pine nut, pecan, chestnut (Group 2)
11) Add 0.5 cup of chicken stock (if you like your stuffing dry, add less; if you like it soft, add a little more)
12) Mix well and taste to check if you need to add salt
13) Transfer to a casserole dish
14) (optional) Add sage and thyme on top
15) Seal the casserole dish with foil
16) Bake in oven for 20 minutes
17) Rest for 5 minutes after taken out of oven
Notes:
You can bake this dish when your turkey is out of oven and resting, so that the serving time is synchronized.