How to Make Stuffing

Featured Pro: Curtis Stone
Category: Cooking
Time: 4:20


CURTIS STONE: Hey, I’m Curtis Stone. In my next GMC Trade Secret, I’m going to teach you all about the perfect stuffing.

Now, it’s getting close to that festive time of year, and what you need to do is decide – are you going to make the stuffing and put it straight into the turkey, or are you going to make the stuffing and serve it in a dish like this?

Now, here I’ve just cubed up some bread and I’ve let it dry out. So you can see it’s not stale, it’s not hard, but it’s certainly not super-fresh. You want to leave it out for maybe a day. What you do with your bread is you want to flavor it. So we’ve got two different things going on. In this pan, I’ve got some onions, some leeks, some celery and some mushrooms. Okay, so that’s all cooking down. Over here I’ve got a few aromatics, really nice strong-flavored herbs, because, you know, you want the stuffing to be able to stand up to the beautiful flavor of the turkey.

So what I’m going to do is just throw all those together and just chop through it. I’m just going to scoop that up. And pop your herbs straight there into your onions, leeks, celery and mushrooms.

Over in this pan, what I’ve done is I’ve just sauted off little bits of chopped-up sausage. In the center, I’ve got a little bit of chicken stock, and that’s to moisten the stuffing. Okay, right.

So what you need to do is grab your bread and just pick it up, throw it straight into your bowl. Pick up all of this beautiful flavor that you’ve made, right. I’m going to use my bowl over here. We’re going to mix that together. So you’ve got all of those beautiful flavors that are just so seasonal; go straight in like that. Okay, so the warmth of that is going to soften up that bread, of course. And then don’t forget your sausage. So the sausage goes in too.

All right, now, I’ve cooked up a little bit of crispy bacon as well. I just love bacon. I think it’s so, so festive. So I’m going to sprinkle some of that in too. And then, lastly, my chicken stock. Let me just pour that over. Start off with that much. We can always add a bit more. And then just mix it. Just get underneath there and just lift it on up, and you’ll see that bread will really start to soak up the beautiful flavor.

Okay, now, check it for seasoning, right, before you put your egg in. Definitely needs some salt and pepper, so a good pinch of salt and a really generous crack of pepper. Now, remember, this is just one example of what a stuffing can be. The fundamentals of the stuffing, it’s completely up to you. You really need the bread. And then the rest, it can work itself in. Like I said, sausage and bacon is great. You can put chestnuts. You can put fennel. You can put raisins. You know, the options are really, really endless. You can put a bunch of different stuff in there. So get a bit experimental. Try one this year, and then next year try something a bit different.

Okay, so grab yourself a tray. What I’m going to do is just take a little bit of butter. And this is just so that we can get it back out of the dish really easy. And then it’s time to mix it with the eggs. So you’ve got a couple of eggs. Now, the purpose of the eggs is to hold it together. It’s to bind it. So just crack two of those guys into a bowl, mix it with a fork. Okay, great.

Next you just pick up that egg and pour it over. Now, you might not need it all, so just use three quarters of it first and just give that a quick mix. Okay, pick up your stuffing mix and just slide it on into your tray. What happens next is this is ready to go into the oven. I’m just going to cover it with some aluminum foil, because that’s going to help to keep it moist for the first 20 minutes. Then I take it off and let it crispen up for the last 20.

So 20 minutes ago I took the foil off this guy, and look at that. Isn’t that beautiful? Nice and crunchy. I can’t help myself. Mmm.

Now you know how to make stuffing like a pro. I’m Curtis Stone, and that’s your GMC Trade Secret.