Pete's sausage stuffing

1 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
Celery, chopped
2 Onions, chopped
Fresh sage, minced
1 pounds Italian Sweet Sausage
Mushrooms
Salt
Pepper
2 Eggs, beaten
Chicken broth
Stale bread

Directions

Some things in the above list may not be clear but read on it will all come together later.

Day before you start making the rest of the stuffing, prepare the bread.

Usually if I remember to I put the bread, cut up into cubes, on top of my refrigerator to dry out completely. This is what makes the best stuffing.

Now, a word about bread. What kind? To some extent this is a matter of personal preference. I have always been taught to use only bread that I would serve at the table, and I have pretty high standards. In general if you go to an Italian bakery and get good Italian bread and dice that up this makes superb stuffing.

The day of the making of the stuffing: In a saucepan put the sausage in water and simmer for about 30 minutes. Put the celery and the onions in a skillet, turn the heat on and when the pan gets hot and the onions start to sizzle put in a few drops of olive oil. Add the sage and salt and pepper to taste. Slice the mushrooms and set aside.

Combine the bread cubes, mushrooms, onions, and celery. Remove the sausage from the water and let cool enough to handle. Cut into half lengthwise and then cut into thin slices. Or thick slices... who cares.

Combine this with the bread mixture.

Now, a side note about sausage. The best sausage to use is from the proverbial Italian Pork Store. This stuff usually has a lower fat content and a much better flavor. You *could* even use things like veal sausage. I have done this and it comes out great.

Add chicken broth to the bread mixture, just enough to get everything moist, but not sopping wet. If you make it too wet at this stage you will end up with moosh later on.

If you are making your stuffing ahead of time stop here and continue only when you are ready to put this into the bird.

Just before you stuff the bird, add the beaten eggs and stir the mixture very thouroughly.

Cook your bird according to whatever method you are following and when all is done, enjoy.

A Pete Berghold trick here: When the bird is stuffed, put a slice of bread over the body cavity opening. This will protect your stuffing so you don't lose some to being "crusty." Posted to FOODWINE Digest 27 November 96 Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 01:18:27 -0500 From: "Peter L. Berghold" <peterb@...>

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