Chicken Stuffing

Three lines of instruction that assume you bought a whole bird with the giblet bag still inside. The proportions are left entirely to the cook, so the notes below fill in the working numbers.

• The hinge: the gizzardHeart and liver chop and cook quickly, but a gizzard is muscle and stays rubbery unless it is simmered first. Cover the heart and gizzard with water or stock and simmer 45 minutes to an hour until a knife goes in easily, then chop; add the liver raw or briefly seared, as it needs only a few minutes.
• QuantitiesThe giblets of one 4-5 lb chicken yield roughly 1/2 cup chopped meat. The recipe gives no proportions; as a working starting point, about 2 cups cooked rice (from 2/3 cup raw) and 2 tablespoons butter should be enough to fill the cavity of that bird.
• Sourcing gibletsSupermarket birds are often sold without them, and the packet, when included, may hold only neck and liver. A butcher will usually sell giblets separately, and chicken hearts and gizzards are stocked frozen in many markets.
• "Season to taste"The recipe specifies nothing; salt and pepper are the minimum, and herbs are a matter of choice. Season the rice mixture assertively and taste it before it goes into the bird, since nothing can be corrected once stuffed.
• Stuffing temperatureRice packs densely and heats slowly. Fill the cavity loosely, and take the stuffing to 165F on an instant-read thermometer pushed into the centre of it, not just the thigh of the bird. The giblets and any raw liver are the reason this number matters.
• Roasting, which the recipe omitsA stuffed 4-5 lb chicken is usually given a moderate oven, around 350F, for roughly 1 3/4 to 2 1/2 hours; stuffing typically adds some time over the same bird roasted empty. Go by the thermometer rather than the clock.
• If you would rather not stuffBake the mixture in a buttered dish alongside, moistened with a few spoonfuls of stock so it does not dry, about 30 minutes covered. It reaches temperature reliably and the bird cooks faster.