Yup, all those things actually got stuffed inside a 12 lb turkey.
First, Bonnie Stern had a
stuffing recipe up for Rosh Hashannah, and it seemed like a waste to stuff turkey breasts with it. You have to cut open all the breasts and you can never get enough of the delicious filling in there (the filling is always better than the meat anyway). As I'm a big believer in sharing traditions, and an even bigger believer in not wasting the rest of the turkey, I figured Thanksgiving would be the perfect time to bastardize her recipe by adding a loaf of bread and turn it into enough stuffing for an entire bird. Thank goodness I was right for once.
1 giant turkey (10-12 lbs -- ridiculous, I know. I put it in my bike basket, as I do with all heavy things I buy at the market, and nearly made my bike do a somersault twice trying to jaywalk across Atwater, it was so back-weighted.
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt (kosher if it's for Rosh Hashanah, of course)
1 tbsp fresh rosemary
5 beautiful shallots, diced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 apple, peeled, cored and diced
2 tbsp honey
1/2 cup dried apricots, diced (easiest to do all the dried fruit dicing with scissors)
1/2 cup pitted dates, diced
1/2 cup dried figs, diced (don't buy medjools. Buy the cheap, pre-pitted ones and save yourself the hassle)
1/4 cup apple juice (Yeah, I didn't have juice, but I had apples, so I just blended them and made purée. I figured a bit of extra fibre would be just fine, and the stuffing would get a lot of added juice from the turkey)
1 tsp thyme (fresh or very high-quality dried. Mine was amazing. I opened a can of Épices de Cru thyme from Provence...mmm...it actually MADE the dish since the slight bitterness cut through the sweetness of the dried fruit and the tang of the sourdough. Absolutely amazing)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup water
I did everything right until I decided to stop being so well-behaved...
I cooked the onions, garlic and apples to in the oil over medium heat for about 8 minutes.
I added the honey, apricots, dates, figs and apple juice and cooked a few more minutes. Then I added the thyme, lemon juice and a tiny bit of my salt and Sichuan peppercorn blend. Then I chopped up an entire load of chocolate cranberry bread from LaPerle et Son Boulanger in the Plateau market (I bought two loaves that week so I wouldn't go loafless for a week once this was used...actually I used the opportunity to buy both a cranberry chocolate loaf AND a hazelnut loaf. I swear the toasted hazelnuts are the most amazing things ever invented, possibly besides this recipe, but if you put one of the most amazing things into THE most amazing thing it only helps. I know I'm crazy but even the hazelnuts inside the loaf seem toasted by the baking process. The ones outside get a slightly charred, papery cover that I adore too, but this loaf just seems magical. "Magical sourdough". I should never market anything. Ever.
Now my favourite part: mixing it all together. I actually didn't want to do it with my hands because I didn't want to waste any liquid by getting it stuck to me and not to the bread, but in the end my hands won out. Massaging bread like this is amazing. The only thing that beats it is bread pudding because there's more liquid. You shouldn't lick your hands after that one, though. This one I had to have some restraint to just not eat by the spoonful.
Then into the bird it went. And straight into the oven...
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