Turkey Stuffing

A plain chestnut stuffing that leans on the sweetness of the nuts rather than on sausage or herbs. It comes together in minutes once the chestnuts are cooked, which is the only laborious part.

• ChestnutsTwo cups of shelled cooked chestnuts is roughly a pound of nuts in the shell. Vacuum-packed or jarred whole cooked chestnuts work directly and skip the peeling; if starting from raw, score each shell with an X, boil 15-20 minutes, and peel while hot, since both shell and inner skin cling once cool.
• The ingredient list already says cookedThe list calls for cooked chestnuts and the method then tells you to boil them. Treat the boiling step as the instruction for raw nuts; if you buy them cooked, warm them briefly so they mash smoothly.
• ShorteningThe 1/3 cup of melted shortening would have been whatever solid fat was to hand, most likely a hydrogenated vegetable shortening or lard. Melted butter gives better flavour and the same quantity works, though it will brown the stuffing more.
• SaltTwo teaspoons for this quantity is on the heavy side by current taste, particularly if you are using salted butter or commercial crumbs. Start with one and adjust.
• CrumbsDry bread crumbs may mean either stale bread dried and crushed at home or the finer commercial kind. Coarser homemade crumbs hold the water better and give the stuffing some texture.
• Cooking temperatureStuffing packed inside a bird must reach 165F at the centre of the cavity, checked with a thermometer, not by the clock. Because the dense chestnut mixture heats slowly, an alternative is to bake it in a buttered dish at 350F for 30-40 minutes and moisten it with pan juices instead.
• YieldAbout three to four cups, enough for a smaller bird of roughly 6-8 lb, or about six servings baked separately.