Roasted chestnut and sausage stuffing

Call it dressing, call it stuffing, call it whatever you want - it's all the same when you eat it.  And after years of making different stuffing recipes, I've come to appreciate the value in an easy one that tastes really good.  Unless, of course, you consider roasting chestnuts to be difficult.  Which you probably should.

This is the recipe we've used for the past three years running at Thanksgiving, because it doesn't involve sitting around chopping vegetables for 20 minutes before you even start the cooking.  Plus, we used pre-roasted chestnuts this year, which saved a ton of time and frustration.  Still, there's no experience quite like cursing at a chestnut that won't open correctly; chestnuts are like honey badgers - they're crazy, and they don't care about you or your priorities.  But home-roasted chestnuts can be quite delicious, so it's something to consider when you make this dish.

Here are some of the special tools you should have to make this stuffing:

1. Food processor.  You don't have to chop up vegetables for this recipe.  You just through your mire poix right in the processor and go to town.  So if you don't have a processor, the merits of this dish will be lost on you.
2. Electric bread knife.  You have to tear down a loaf of sourdough bread into cubes for this, and it's a PITA.  If you don't have an electric knife, you at least need a decent serrated bread knife.
3. Paring knife.  If you plan to roast your chestnuts, you need a good paring knife to score them without destroying them.

I found this recipe on Food Network's website after one too many failed stuffing attempts (oysters one year, wild rice another, I think curry found its way in once).  It's really good, and another one of those sides that's overly filling but which we can't live without.  Once nicely roasted, the stuffing gets crispy around the edges and highlights the earthy taste of the chestnuts, the pungent sausage, and the mildly tart kick from the bread, and makes for a really awesome combination of flavors.

Chestnut and Sausage Dressing

By Tyler Florence (unmodified)

• 1 medium carrot, peeled and rough chopped
• 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
• 2 stalks celery, roughly chopped
• 1/2 bunch fresh sage
• 1 1/2 pounds loose sweet Italian sausage
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 5 cups cubed sourdough bread, crusts removed
• 1 pound roasted chestnuts
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken stock
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 large egg

The setup - note that we started with pre-roasted chestnuts this year.  No open fires for us.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and butter a 9" x 11" baking dish.  Seriously, butter it up - I forgot to do this once and the bottom got burnt, and it was no fun.  You only need a little, just smear a stick around and then get in the corners with a paper towel to distribute.

In a food processor, puree the carrot, onion, celery (the mire poix) and sage until you have a fine pulp.  Okay, I lied about the no chopping thing - you have to hack the vegetables into pieces small enough to fit in the processor, but that's it!  Cube the sourdough by first removing the crusts, then slicing into about 3/4" rounds, and then cubing that into 3/4" cubes.  Any bigger and the stuffing will come out dry.  Much smaller and it will be mushy.  A little variability in your cuts will help you get any combination of the above consistencies you want.  Roast the chestnuts by scoring an "X" in the convex side of the shells and throwing into a 425 F oven for 30 minutes, until the shells have split open.  Then peel them while they're still warm.  Consult the internet (http://bit.ly/vrwdOo) for further information.

The food processor option is much easier than chopping a bunch of vegetables

This is what the cubed bread should look like.  This would have been vastly expedited with an electric knife

Set a large skillet over medium-high heat and brown the sausage in a little olive oil.  You want to brown this in bite-sized chunks, so throw it in the pan and then break it up with a spoon.  And like I said, you want to BROWN this.  Don't just "grey" your meat - let it get some color on there.  It's called the Maillard reaction, and it's a good thing.  To do this, get the meat broken up into the right sized pieces, then just let it sit for a couple of minutes.  Don't just stir the heck out of it until it's a uniform gross color - let the bottom brown by sitting on the hot pan until the amino acids in the meat start to do their thing, then stir a couple of times to get the other sides similarly browned.

Notice how there is actually some brown coloring on the meat?  You want that - it makes your food taste good.  Stop stirring, and just be patient.

Once you have a nice brown color and the fat has rendered (about 5 minutes), use a slotted spoon to remove the sausage and place in a large mixing bowl.  Add the vegetable pulp to the pan and saute until most of the moisture has evaporated.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add to a large mixing bowl along with the sausage, the bread cubes, and the chestnuts.

Mix together chicken stock, cream and egg.  Pour this wet mixture over the dressing mix. Season and fold everything together.  Now here's a tip - don't press on the stuffing when you put it in the roasting dish; in fact, don't even pour it.  Scoop it out delicately and try to pack into the dish as loosely as possible.  This will ensure that you get good browning and even cooking, and you don't end up with mushy stuffing at the end.  Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until golden brown on the top (if it gets too brown before the 30 minutes is up, tent with foil).

Light and fluffy before baking, because it wasn't pressed into the pan.  It's like a big delicious cloud of awesomeness.

The finished stuffing, nicely browned and crispy in virtually every bite.

Serve with your favorite fowl, and enjoy!  I find that this doesn't really require any gravy to improve on the flavors, but that doesn't mean it's not still good with gravy.  Besides, what isn't?