Nigella's gingerbread stuffing
It's funny, stuffing used to be made to eke out the meat. These days it's mainly used as part of the Christmas feast. The best shouldn't just be relegated to December, and this one is good enough to eat all through the winter. We're having it tonight alongside the duck in orange sauce Lettice is cooking. Easy, too.
Gingerbread stuffing
Blitz three smallish onions and two peeled and cored eating apples. Put them in a large saucepan with some oil and fry gently. Meanwhile, blitz 400g bacon (I used smoked bits the butcher sells at a discount). Add this to the pan and continue frying.
While this is going on, blitz a gingerbread loaf (say a McVitie's 400g Jamaica loaf). Use the same food processor bowl each time, and you don't need to wipe it out, because the whole mixture will be cooked in the oven later.
Take the pan off the heat after 10-15 minutes in total, and grate on the zest of an orange. Cool a little, then add the crumbs.
When you're ready to cook the stuffing, stir in an egg, then press the mixture into a loaf pan. Cover, and bake for 3/4 hour at 200C. Take off the lid/foil for the last 10 minutes.
You can use this to stuff a bird; I always cook it separately, because that's what we did when I was a child. Fear of bacteria, I seem to remember. No picture again: I'm back to using my blog to remind myself of what I've cooked, so that I can cook it again.
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8 comments:
sounds fabulous. very different. can't go wrong with a nigella recipe!
cheers,
*heather*
Hi Joanne
As a beginner cook, can i just check what you need by 'blitz'. Do you mean i put the ingrediants in my liquidizer. Sorry if i am asking the obvious but when i say i am a beginner, i really mean it!! If you do mean this to what consitency do i blitz them? Thank you in advance for your help.
Anonymous = Mandy
Thanks squirrelbread - it's very good.
Mandy, I apologize. I posted this recipe in note form so that I could easily find it again, and didn't bother to make it very clear for anyone else. Very rude of me.
What you want here is a crumb-like texture for everything. You don't want babyfood, or the finished stuffing won't have any texture. You might like big lumps, in which case, don't chop too fine; I prefer fairly uniform small pieces. You can do this with a sharp knife and a bit of patience. I did it in a food processor. A liquidiser would be okay, although you'd have to watch to make sure you didn't get babyfood. And the cake you could crumble by hand to give it good texture.
Good luck - and get back to me if it's still not clear
Joanna
I would never have thought of using ginger cake in stuffing but it sounds delicious.
Thats all perfectly clear. Thank you so much Joanna!
Mandy
That sounds very unusual but very good.
Mandy, glad to have been of help. Sam, Tanna, it really is worth a try - as you say, unusual but delicious, even to those who think they don't like stuffing.
Joanna
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