My dad used to make the best stuffing ever. As a child I often ate so much of it that I was sick. His stuffing was so rich and delicious I don’t think I could ever recreate it. When I tell people that it had chopped liver in it they don’t believe me that it was good. If you ever were lucky enough to be invited to my dads for one of his epic roast dinners then you’ll know how legendary the stuffing was. His gravy, on the other hand, was bloody dreadful. He liked a really thin watery gravy with onions and giant chunks of carrot floating in it, along with a whole host of unpleasant (in my opinion) ingredients such as turkey neck, peanut butter and I swear that one time there was a hint of soy. Not my cup of tea at all – I like the spoon to almost stand up in the gravy pan!!
My sister seems to have inherited our dads insane cooking abilities. Her stuffing is nothing like our dads but is equally incredible! I hope that this recipe does it justice!
Just FYI, I’ve said in the recipe you can use fresh breadcrumbs or stuffing mix. We don’t buy bread, we bake it once a week. As a result sometimes we don’t have enough to spare for this so we have a jar of Aldi sage and onion stuffing mix in the cupboard which we use if there’s no bread left! Don’t worry about adjusting the herbs and garlic if you use the stuffing mix as this is supposed to pack a real flavour punch!
Ingredients
1 large onion, finely diced
6-8 good sausages, skins removed and insides squashed
3 cloves of garlic
75g mushrooms, finely diced
Either fresh breadcrumbs (about 2 slices) or equivalent of dried stuffing mix
Bunch of fresh parsley finely chopped
Several sprigs of thyme, leaves picked & chopped
1/4 tsp dried sage
Big pinch of celery salt
Stock – a bit of beef oxo or a dash of homemade chicken stock – whatever you have got in
30g butter in small cubes
50g dried apricots, chopped into small chunks
Optional
Nuts – we change this up! We use about 75g of nuts – cashews, pecans, walnuts and roasted chestnuts all work brilliantly
Cranberry sauce – to amp up the Christmas in our stuffing we often stir through a few heaped teaspoons of cranberry sauce straight into the stuffing. Sometimes we just keep it to the apricots.
Method
Preheat oven to 180º
Combine all ingredients including your optional extras
Spread into a buttered Pyrex or enamel dish.
Bake in the oven for 35-45 minutes at 180º