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How do I stuff a bird?

mrsfran

mrsfran

Well-Known Member
Embarrassingly, I've never stuffed a roast bird with anything other than a few herbs or lemon. Today I have a guinea fowl and I'd like to stuff it with sausage meat. Of course, I realise that this is going to make a difference to the cooking time, but by how much? And how do I ensure that the stuffing cooks though and the bird doesn't dry out? Do I stuff the whole cavity or just a bit? Or should I not bother and just cook the stuffing separately?
 
mmm, seen that doesn't contain sausagemeat. My mum always cooked up the sauagemeat first, let it cool and then mixed it with the herbs and breadcrumbs, then stuffed the bird.
 
My mum got hospitalised with campylobactor a few years ago and now won't cook stuffing in the bird. It's not the same. :(


Still, it's nice to still have a mum. You need to look on the bright side, I suppose.


that said that was with skirly. Sausagemeat stuffing she always cooked outside the bird and it was fine if you like sausagemeat stuffing, which I don't.
 
again I find a thread title in suburban that makes me think it should be in N&S

I think I need to grow up a bit
 
I'm wondering if you ought to do it under foil for some of the cooking time too, just because guinea fowl is more prone to drying out than chicken... :hmm:
 
don't stuff the whole cavity. it'll take an age to cook if you do

stuffing's easy. sausagemeat, breadcrumbs, herbs. apple, lemon, whatever

mix it up and stuff it. it'll take longer in the oven but i'm not sure how much.

cooking the bird upside down will help prevent it drying out

but i always do the stuffing separately. tis much easier
 
I would do some stuffing separately too, btw - some inside for the flavour - but some cooked on it's own for a nice crunchy topping. :cool:


Btw, missfran - my mum has the NICEST stuffing recipe in the whole world (for poultry) - remind me if you want to make some again and I'll dig it out for you.

I always make at least double the amount when I make it and eat it straight from the fridge for days afterwards. :cool: :D
 
4oz fresh breadcrumbs soaked in milk and squeezed dry
2oz of finely chopped Mortadella
2ox finely diced prosciutto
4 finely chopped shallots
2 anchovies, pounded
1tbs chopped parsley and basil
grated nutmeg
4 oz mushrooms, sliced and sauteed for a few minutes in butter
a crushed clove of garlic
8 black olives, stoned and chopped
the capons liver, shredded (it's actually a capon stuffing, but we just use the liver from whatever bird we're doing, plus a few extra chicken livers, just cos we like 'em! :D )
2 red peppers, roasted and chopped (or just blackened under the grill/over a hot flame...with the skin removed)
1 desertspoon of grated sweet almonds (for this we just chop flaked almonds - better texture than ground)
salt and blabk pepper
2 eggs

Mix together and add a little olive oil if the mixture is too dense.




As I say, I always do double cos I love it and put a bit in the bird, but then cook most of it in a dish in the oven (30 - 40 minutes maybe?) so that it's moist inside, but with a firmer top, iyswim.


Looks like a lot of faffing about, but it's not actually that bad (although we generally only do it at Christmas, tbf) and if those sorts of flavours appeal to you (some mad people don't like anchovies/black olives/livers etc apparently! :hmm: ) it's fucking delicious!

I literally cannot stop obsessing about it till it's gone....in fact, it's probably my favourite thing about Christmas. :D


And now that I've bothered copying out, you'll HAVE to make it! :mad: :p
 
I never stuff birds because I make stock from the carcasses. I don't like having bits of bread and stuffing whatnots floating around with the bones and flavouring the stock.

It's a simple matter to make stuffing in a seperate baking dish. Since it takes less time to cook, you can add pan juices from the roasting pan the bird's in and toss them with the stuffing mixture. With that addition, I can't see how it would taste differently from stuffing cooked inside the bird.
 
Y_I_Otter said:
I never stuff birds because I make stock from the carcasses. I don't like having bits of bread and stuffing whatnots floating around with the bones and flavouring the stock.

It's a simple matter to make stuffing in a seperate baking dish. Since it takes less time to cook, you can add pan juices from the roasting pan the bird's in and toss them with the stuffing mixture. With that addition, I can't see how it would taste differently from stuffing cooked inside the bird.
Click to expand...


But it's meant to flavour the bird, as much as anything!

But yeah - we don't fill the whole thing up - just put a good handful inside and then do the rest separately.

My mum generally makes sure that every last scrap is eaten from inside the carcass well before it gets to the stock making stage (and if there were any of it left when we started taking the meat off the bones and breaking the carcass up, she'd just eat it then instead! :rolleyes: :D

I prefer mine done outside - it's less sloppy - but it does add a little flavour, I must say (nothing I couldn't make do without however).
 
By the way - the recipe is from 'Plats Du Jour' by Patience Gray and Primrose Boyd, which is a lovely book that my mum referred to a lot for special things while I was growing up (wherever Bee Nilson failed to deliver :D ).

Definitely worth snapping up if you happen to come across it anywhere (my mum has an original version, but in the style of Jane Grigson, she got me my own copy from a jumble sale :cool: ).

bookplatsdujour.jpg


Plats du Jour was first published in 1957. `Long before this book was
thought of,' wrote the authors, `we had separately evolved a system of
cooking by which a variety of dishes was replaced by a single plat du jour
accompanied, as a rule, by a green salad, a respectable cheese, and fruit
in season, and, wherever possible, by a bottle of wine. This conception of
a meal underlies this book.' It appeared at a time when dishes such as
pasta, risotto, soupe aux poireaux et aux haricots or mackerel au vin blanc
were still considered outlandish.

Plats du Jour was one of Jane Grigson's favourite books: if ever she
saw one in a jumble sale she bought it to give as a present. For, as the
well-known food historian, Alan Davidson, wrote, `it is a very good book
indeed. Its principal ingredients, the knowledge and amiable enthusiasm of
the authors, have given it a lasting value.' And he pointed out that it is
a very original cookery book, written in unpretentious language, in an
unprescriptive, relaxed way by two cooks with whom it is easy to identify.
(They were also running a small business during the two years they were
writing Plats du Jour). The delightful and eye-catching jacket which is
now the Persephone endpaper was designed by David Gentleman, who was 25 and
had just left the Royal College of Art. He has written in his book Art
Work: `My illustrations were based on drawings and watercolours made in
Provence, Burgundy and Italy... They were not wholly Mediterranean. The
cuts of meat were drawn in two butchers' shops, one in Essex and the other
in the meat-preparing room at Harrods, underneath the Food Hall. The front
cover shows a table at the start of a meal, while the back cover shows the
tail end of it, with only the debris and the sleeping cats left. I had come
across plenty of precedents for this before-and-after approach: strip
cartoons, medieval chests and illuminations, and paintings such as
Uccello's great narrative scenes from the Old Testament.' David Gentleman
believes that `Patience Gray and Primrose Boyd's admirable and practical
Plats du Jour [is] every bit as good as Elizabeth David' and many will
agree with him. In fact, in terms of sales and influence it was Patience
Gray and Primrose Boyd who were the pioneers in introducing English cooks
to French everyday cookery. Plats du Jour sold 50,000 copies in the first
few months after publication and 100,000 in the next three years, an
astonishing amount at the time. It was only in the 1960s that Elizabeth
David started to become a symbol of the transformation of English
middle-class eating habits. Before that Plats du Jour was the favourite and
influential French cookery book.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I've slightly strayed from the 'stuffing' theme here, haven't I? :hmm: :p
 
Yeah, she's not always the most exciting of cooks, but she's solid and reliable and that's what you need with these last minute cooking queries, innit?
 
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