Carla Makes Thanksgiving Stuffing

What a time to be alive, you know?

Thanksgiving day.

[classy jazz music]

I think in general with stuffing, simple is best.

And this recipe was developed by Victoria Granof,

who, in her own right, is a legend.

A living legend, look her up.

She worked on a Thanksgiving recipe story with us

a few years ago, came up with this stuffing recipe,

we come back to it again and again,

because it is kind of like everything you want

about stuffing straight down the middle.

The other thing I really like about the stuffing,

and while I am talking about the stuffing,

I will tear the bread,

which is the first step in the recipe.

Leaving the crust on the bread.

The other thing I'm doing about the bread,

thanks Tom, you saved me from a total brain melt.

Not dicing the bread.

Tearing into craggy pieces because you get better texture

that way, you get all these like thin parts

and shaggy parts and raggedy parts,

and just rough parts,

and so you don't need a perfect little dice.

And I like the way it looks also.

Rustico.

You know?

First thing is tearing this bread and drying it out.

It's going to absorb all of the liquid

that's the base of the stuffing, because you're really

making a custard between the chicken stock and the eggs,

and that liquid is almost like a custard

that the stuffing bakes in.

It's not actually stuffing at all, it's dressing,

but we call it stuffing because the word dressing

is just weird.

But the stuffing isn't stuffed in the bird.

Still tearing bread.

All right, so I'm pleased with these pieces.

That was a one pound loaf of bread,

which is the right amount, if you have a really big loaf,

obviously scale down, but it's crusty without being

like an incredibly hard toasted, because it is going

into the oven.

250

for about an hour.

I could do this with my hands, or I could do it

with the paper towel.

Paper towel.

Buttering the dish.

As if there's not, there's plenty

of butter in the recipe.

But, one of the great parts of stuffing

is those corner pieces.

And the butter's gonna just help crisp everything up.

You need so much butter at Thanksgiving, I mean,

and you know the best place to store butter

is in the freezer.

Just start stocking up now.

All right, so checking on the bread,

one hour has elapsed.

Okay.

So what you're looking for, there was no fat

added to these, so they're not like croutons,

but they're thoroughly dried out without being

like rock hard.

They still have a beautiful shaggy texture

with lots of crispy bits later,

and it's also just more,

I don't know it just feels more natural.

And then the drying out is for absorption

of our delicious broth, egg, aromatic mixture.

That's gonna get tossed in.

Okey dokey.

When these cool down, I'm gonna put them

in a really big bowl, and that'll just be ready.

In the meantime, very classic lineup.

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

The whole band's together.

A large amount of butter is being used

to cook down these vegetables.

So, I'm not looking to get a ton of color

on these vegetables.

I am looking to really sweat them out

and get all of their natural sweetness going.

When will my butter melt?

The Carla Music Story.

There's a lot of physics, again.

Cutting the butter into smaller pieces

so it melts faster.

That's physics, right?

[laughing]

This is the Simple is Best,

The Victoria Granof.

Icon. Legend.

Why is it, it's a real favorite of the Kitchen.

I mean, it's the only stuffing recipe

that I actually follow.

And why?

Just 'cause it hits all the right notes.

It has like enough amount of savory herbs, the onion.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, so that's the onion.

This is the celery, and the goal here is

I mean, it's a really glorious amount of butter.

All right, so we're gonna cook this until totally softened,

just beginning to brown, which will be

like an indication that it has cooked thoroughly,

and all the water has released, and things are happening

now where you're like starting to brown in the fat

that's left in the pan.

But slow and steady.

Takes like ten.

My instinct tells me to season the onion and the celery.

I'm not doing it, because the recipe says not to,

and to season after it comes out.

Salt's gonna come in in a couple of other places.

We're gonna salt this mixture once it's combined

with the bread, the eggs, and the broth.

And the broth that I'm using also has seasoning in it,

so it's really just a way to control for that.

Normally like a mirepoix like this

you expect to see carrot.

The idea of carrot in the stuffing,

is anything more wrong?

That just seems insane.

The celery, however, with all the herby things.

I don't know, just feels very right.

Okay, I'm almost ready over there.

Everything is really soft.

I started to see a little bit of browning

around the edges, so just to get ready

you do need a really big bowl.

I have my dried out, not toasted, just dried out

bread pieces, and I'm just gonna get this

into this big bowl so I can add

the vegetables right on top.

So this is just gonna go right into that bowl.

Oh yeah.

I'm just gonna distribute, and I'm just kind of

coating everything, and distributing the veg.

Parsley.

Sage.

Stay with me now. Rosemary.

Thyme on my mind.

All right, another toss.

Oh.

Oh god, I got a breach.

Okay.

I also have an amount of salt.

I'm gonna add about half of this

and then I'm gonna taste and see where we're at.

Salt and peppa.

That's what my dad says.

I'm gonna just wing it.

So the chicken broth right now is gonna rehydrate

the bread, and it's gonna get it to start absorbing

all of these flavors, because it is kind of like, it's dry.

The butter is something it kind of coated.

The chicken broth right now is gonna get into

the fibers of the bread, and it's gonna start to rehydrate.

And this is an important stage, where if you

under-do it, and there's not enough liquid,

then you're going to have that kind of dry

just a dry stuffing.

Nobody wants dry stuffing.

If you overdo it, you could have something

that goes to soggy and never turns the corner to crisp.

I feel already that the bread is getting rehydrated

and that's really from the broth and the butter

at this stage, so your hands really are

the best tool for this.

And I really wanna be able to feel,

like they're starting to feel the tiniest bit malleable,

but they're still really, really crisp.

Gonna be a little bit more generous with the broth.

And this is another important thing.

The recipe says what the recipe says,

but the end point, you need to pay attention

to not just the measurements, but the texture

that you're going for.

So we're gonna let this cool down for a little bit

because in the next stage, I'm gonna add

even more broth and a couple of eggs,

and I don't want the stuffing mixture

to be hot when the eggs go in, or else it'll start to cook.

And we want them to cook in the oven, not the bowl.

Cool.

Smells good. Looks good.

Very herby.

I wanna give it a taste.

Mm.

Mm, it's like Panzanella at this stage.

So, we hydrated the bread with our broth.

We've seasoned it, we have amazing vegetable herb medley

situation going on.

That's the gonna be the backbone,

that's really like the stuffing part of the stuffing.

I've got two eggs.

I'm going to add the remaining cup and a quarter

of chicken broth, and that is really going to,

if this was just about getting the bread moistened,

see, somehow the word moist I really object to.

The word moistened

not as much.

Not as offensive.

This amount of liquid is really going to surround

the entire mixture and give it that pudding-ish

custardy, savory, all the way baked through

kind of texture that you're looking for.

You wanna spoon into a stuffing and have a crispy layer

on the top, and then kind of like an everybody

melded together on the insides.

And you need the egg to set that mixture.

So that's why we have two eggs.

Couple of eggs in there, and then again,

I'm adding another cup and a quarter of the Swanson broth.

Okay, so now this egg and broth mixture

is gonna go in, and now I really want everything

to feel like thoroughly encased in that custard mix.

It feels like a saturated sponge

that is not turning to mush, but there is moisture

all the way to the core.

And that's what I want.

Okey dokey.

We have our beautiful buttered dish over here.

Everybody in the pool.

This is gonna bake at 350 degrees,

then it can come out, and it can kind of hang out

a little bit, so if you're cranking the oven

or having other things that are in the oven

you can have some in between time

before your stuffing has to go back in

because the oven real estate is also a real thing.

Okay, so now that's gonna bake until it's totally set,

and the custard itself is at 160 degrees,

and we're gonna uncover and finish baking.

40 minutes has elapsed.

Remove the foil.

It's completely set, but still nice and bouncy.

It's absorbed, it looks perfect.

And the second stage is really about getting

that top brown crispy texture going.

And that'll take like another half an hour, 35 minutes,

at the same temp.

Just went on the turkey trot.

I feel so refreshed.

It was like a six miler,

and then for the last mile I sprinted.

[chuckles] I feel really good.

I feel like I earned my dinner.

The stuffing, while I was running,

has become like a really magical and beautiful experience.

Oh la, la.

See, the amazing volume of beautiful herbs.

I think it assumes that like leading up

to the Thanksgiving meal, you have so much stuff

going on, stuff going on, that the stuffing

is gonna hang out while you're carving

and while you're plating up your mashed potatoes,

but in this scenario, we're just going straight into it.

Oh my gosh, so crispy, I can't even kind of deal with it.

Okay.

That's what people fight about.

The corners.

But it's kind of like brownies.

You have to be careful strategically.

Then you have to be like first in line.

Or, if you're plating up the stuffing

and you're gonna eat the stuffing, then you can

like hide the perfect thing for yourself,

not that I would do that,

so opposite the idea of what Thanksgiving is all about.

But I totally would do that.

It's all of the herbs, it's all of the butter.

It's that delicious poultry flavor.

It's rich but not too rich, but it's crispy,

but it's soggy, it's crispy gone soggy.

It's all of the things.

It's simple and it's the best.

It's simply the best.

But I have to say, this stuffing has made me

like genuinely in a weird way

extremely excited about Thanksgiving.

I'm simply excited.

Yum.