stuffing!

In my earlier post, I think I forgot to mention apples as one of the ingredients of this stuffing. Silly me. I also didn't mention that I decided to go the custard route this time, which is something I normally don't do. But given how one of my batches turned out (the other batch was still baking when I took a nibble from the first batch), I might just be a convert. Everyone's custard is just a little different; some mix eggs and chicken stock, but in my case, it was a savory mix of eggs, heavy cream, milk, and a bit of chicken bouillon. I eyeballed how much custard to make and add to the stuffing, and I think the proportion ended up more or less correct. Victory! Seven eggs well used. And it's a lot of stuffing, which I'll have to give away since I can't eat it after my cheat day.

What follows are a few photos from tonight's stuffing-making. Enjoy the tour.

We start with an irrelevancy, as far as stuffing goes: a photo of the orange-fleshed goguma I talked about before. From now on, I'll be on the lookout for this species:

Some elements of the stuffing piled together:

Raw shrooms and celery ready to be fried up and tossed into the mix:

Some ugly-looking chestnuts, boiled for ten minutes to soften them. They eventually got crushed with a potato masher and dusted over the stuffing for added texture:

Stuffing, raw, with custard added:

The first batch, out of the oven:

The first batch was in a deeper dish, so it came out perfectly: it's crispy on the outside and moist on the inside, like a good bread pudding (adding custard to the stuffing moves it closer along the spectrum to stand with full-on bread puddings). I enjoy textural contrasts. Alas, the crispy bread won't be crispy on Thursday, which is too bad (and we have no oven on site to reheat the stuffing properly—just a microwave), but I think the troops will enjoy the stuffing all the same. The second batch was in a smaller tray and was spread out more thinly; that's the tray from which I ate a sample of stuffing tonight. A wee bit dry, but dump some gravy on it, and it's just fine. I won't be taking this second batch to the office, though, so dryness won't be an issue for the office luncheon.

Anyway, right when the stuffing came out of the oven, I plucked a crouton and bit into it, enjoying the simultaneous crispiness of the crouton's outer layer and the butter that oozed out of it as my teeth closed down on the crunchy bread. Heavenly. Stuffing is arguably the star of the show at Thanksgiving—at least for me. I'm glad this came out as well as it did. I'll be taking the stuffing to work in the morning; it'll sit in the office fridge until Thursday, then probably get microwaved as the luncheon begins. As I said, that likely means the crispy bits won't be crispy, but I think the taste will make up for it. We'll see.