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STUFFING (Lb chestnuts can mushrooms)
1 lb. chestnuts 1 can mushrooms 6 truffles 1 slice raw ham 1 egg 1 oz. mustard seed 2 cucumber pickles 1/4 teaspoon allspice 1/4 teaspoon cloves 2 tablespoons minced parsley 2 teaspoons salt 1 tablespoon onion Boil the nuts till tender enough to chop fine; cut the truffles into strips and chop all the other ingredients. Add seasonings and spices, bind all together with a raw egg.
A dense, bready-free forcemeat in the French manner: chestnuts and cured ham bound with egg rather than crumbs. The proportions are terse, and one of them needs watching.
- The mustard seed is the hingeAn ounce of mustard seed is roughly three tablespoons, which is aggressive in a stuffing of this size and stays gritty unless crushed. Bruise or grind it, or cut it back to a teaspoon or two and taste before it goes near the bird.
- ChestnutsA pound in the shell yields about 2 to 2 1/2 cups peeled. Score and roast or boil them, then peel while hot; the inner skin will not come away once they cool. Vacuum-packed peeled chestnuts are a fair substitute and need only a short simmer to soften.
- One can of mushroomsCan sizes varied; assume something in the 4 to 8 oz range. Drain them well, or use about 8 oz of fresh mushrooms sauteed dry until their liquid has gone, otherwise the mixture weeps.
- TrufflesSix whole truffles at this scale most likely means small ones, probably canned, and they are a luxury now. A tablespoon of truffle peelings, or simply another handful of well-browned mushrooms, keeps the stuffing in balance without pretending.
- Raw hamThis means uncooked cured ham, prosciutto or country ham, not fresh pork. One thick slice, minced fine. It brings salt of its own, so hold back on the two teaspoons until you have tasted.
- Cucumber picklesSour or dill gherkins, not sweet. Chop fine and squeeze dry so the brine does not loosen the egg binding.
- Binding and textureOne egg is barely enough to hold this much chopped matter. Chop finely rather than coarsely, and if it will not cohere in the hand, add a second egg or a few tablespoons of soft crumbs.
- Yield and cookingAbout four cups, which will fill a small bird rather than a large one. With no bread and no fat it bakes tight and firm, so it may suit you better in a buttered dish alongside the roast. Either way, bring the stuffing itself to 165F.
Chestnut stuffings bound with egg and minced cured pork, rather than the bread and sage of English practice, sit close to the French forcemeat tradition, and truffles marked a dish as company food. Canned mushrooms and canned truffles were shelf goods a town grocer could order, so a recipe that would have been restaurant work a generation earlier could be printed for home cooks.