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Onion Dressing
Giblets 1 loaf stale bread 1 large onion, minced 1 cup celery, chopped fine 1 tablespoon poultry seasoning salt and pepper Cook giblets until tender, in water to cover, then chop fine. Break bread into small pieces, then add other ingredients in order given, seasoning to taste. Moisten with liquid in which giblets were cooked. Stuff fowl and roast. If no dressing a whole orange may be baked inside the duck. This adds flavor all its own.
A plain giblet-and-bread stuffing of the sort that filled American holiday birds before boxed mixes. The quantities are loose by design; the only real variable is how much giblet broth the bread will take.
- The hinge: moisten sparinglyAdd the giblet liquid a few tablespoons at a time until the bread is damp but still crumbly. Bread poured full of broth sets into a dense pudding inside the bird, and it will slow the roasting considerably.
- "1 loaf stale bread"Loaf sizes varied, but a torn-up loaf will give something in the range of 8-10 cups of pieces, roughly enough for a large turkey or two ducks. For a small chicken use about a third of it.
- GibletsThe heart, gizzard and neck simmer 45-60 minutes to tenderness; the liver needs 5-10 and turns bitter and chalky if given the full time, so add it late or cook it separately. Strain and keep the broth: it is the only liquid in the recipe.
- Poultry seasoningStill sold, and still mostly sage with thyme, marjoram and a little rosemary or nutmeg. A tablespoon is assertive; if you are mixing your own, start with two teaspoons of sage to one of thyme.
- Stuffed birds and temperatureStuffing inside a bird must reach 165F at its center, checked with a thermometer in the middle of the cavity, not just in the thigh. Mix and stuff immediately before roasting rather than the night before, and never leave a stuffed raw bird standing.
- Baking it separatelyIf you would rather not stuff, press the mixture into a buttered dish, moisten a little more generously, cover, and bake at 350F for about 40 minutes, uncovering for the last 10 to crisp the top.
- The orange noteThe closing line is an alternative, not an addition: a whole orange, pricked, roasted in the duck's cavity in place of dressing. It perfumes the meat and is discarded, so it does nothing for the stuffing recipe above.