ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Cornbread-Chorizo Stuffing

Chorizo-Cornbread Stuffing

From beneath the midden-heap of holiday cooking I HAVE ARISEN!

And I come to talk to you about stuffing.

I always fuck up stuffing. Always have. I thought I always would. The problem is I FRICKING LOVE STUFFING. It’s the besssst. All soft and chewy and crispy in the right places, and it goes with cranberry sauce so damn good and I just could eat it all the time. 

But I’ve always made rubbish stuffing. If I make it in the bird it’s too greasy. If I make it in a separate baking dish it’s too dry, or too butter-flavored, or just meh. WHY DO OTHER PEOPLE MAKE GOOD STUFFING AND I MAKE TRASH I AM A TRASH PERSON IT IS THE ONLY LOGICAL ANSWER.

But this year I had a new baby and it was his first Thanksgiving/Christmaswas feeling a little EMOTIONALLY VULNERABLE and I couldn’t face another year of breadcrumbed failure. I also couldn’t have sage, because it doesn’t fuck with milk production, yet features heavily in Thanksgiving and Christmas foods. So I asked my brother, who is a professional chef and therefore getting paid to make holiday foods for people in a restaurant where everything always comes out right, and he told me to make cornbread chorizo stuffing. That sounded amazing. I love both those things. I combined a bunch of recipes into one, added parsnips because WHO DOESN’T NEED MOAR PARSNIPS AM I RIGHT and…

Oh my god. You guys. Holy shirtballs. It’s so good. We ate the whole tray in two days and then I just went ahead and made another tray once the turky was gone and we had dinner for like a week on that. It’s just so toothsome and sweet and savory and spicy and everything right. I will never love again. This stuffing is my wife now.

Ingredients:

4-6 links of chorizo depending on your LUST FOR MEAT

4 cups dried-the-crap-out cornbread, cubed

2 cups plain white or wheat bread, dried out and cubed

1 large white onion or 1 fennel, chopped fine

2 large carrots, peeled and diced into small chunks

4 large parsnips, peeled and diced into small chunks

2 stalks celery, diced into small chunks

2 cups chicken or turkey stock 

2 pats butter

1 cup toasted pecans

1 tsp cayenne

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp ancho chili powder

Drizzle of honey

Salt and pepper to taste

If you have it, and it does take this stuff to the next level, I can’t lie, but you can totally make it without, several spoonfuls of turkey drippings

STUFF IT, STUFF IT REAL GOOD

This is one of those “fry it all up and mush it together recipes.” It’s not really hard, and it takes longer to peel and chop everything than it does to actually cook it.

Preheat oven to 375. Prepare a large, deep baking dish by filling it with all the bread.

Get a big ol’ frying pan. Put the butter in and swirl around til it coats the pan. Throw in the diced onion or fennel. Salt and pepper. Fry on medium-low heat until onion turns translucent. Add all the vegeatbles, cook for about 5-6 minutes until they’ve started to brown but aren’t cooked all the way through because in a minute we’re gonna bake the shit out of everything and you want the veggies to still have some springiness when we’re done.

Remove veggies from pan and into baking tray full of bread. Add in chorizo, fry until brown. 

Pour all meat and drippings into bread/veggie tray. Heat up the stock and spices in the pan until smoking but not simmering. Pour into baking tray with all the rest. Drippings if you got ‘em. Mix until everything is coated. If it seems a little dry, add a bit more stock or turkey drippings. Drizzle honey over the lot.

Bake for 20-30 minutes depending on how crispy you like your stuffing and PUT IT IN YOUR FACE EVERY YEAR TWICE A YEAR UNTIL THE SUN BURNS OUT.