For the first recipe of 2015, I am posting a recipe that
I’ve been making every year for my family’s Christmas dinners and has now has
become a standard dish. Like the Chinese
Sticky Rice (糯米飯, No6 Mai5
Faan6) recipe, the dish’s preparation starts a few days before
cooking and some ingredients are stir fried before assembling the dish to add
flavor.
I’ve been making this variant of the original Sourdough-Cranberry
Stuffing Recipe at Epicurious.com for many family Christmas dinners. The
most notable additions are linguica and dried oysters. Given the aversion of
one of my family members to celery, that ingredient is left out of this recipe,
but definitely should be included if you make this dish (use the same quantity
as the carrots and onions – 1 cup/125 ml.). I was always intrigued by the use
of cranberries in this dressing, which is probably why I keep making it year
after year.
I’ve been fortunate to be able to get my linguica from the Goulart Sausage Company. They are
a small family owned business and I’ve been buying from them for many years
(they make other products besides linguica). You know that their products have
to be good when you see hardwood, used to smoke their products, stacked at the
front of the business and smelling their smoker at work. I keep telling them
that I need to visit them more often! Hopefully you can find such a gem of a
meat producer, but if you can’t, store bought linguica or Italian sausage are
good substitutes in this dish.
Oysters in stuffing is nothing new, but the oysters used are
usually fresh. In this case, I’ve added dried oysters, an Asian ingredient, to
a traditional American dressing. The dried oysters are of course rehydrated and
are much smaller than their fresh counterparts. The oysters are a fairly recent
addition to this recipe. I’ve made this stuffing without oysters for many
years, so feel free to omit them since I think you’ll still like the results.
The thing about stuffing that I like are that the quantities
of ingredients can vary and the resulting dish still tastes good. The recipe is
very forgiving if you use too much of one ingredient or not enough of another.
Some years I’ve used more linguica because I bought more than I thought I
needed. Sometimes the onion I used is just a little too big, so I use it all.
I’ve used other root vegetables, like turnips and parsnips, and in the end the
dish was still tasty. So what I’m saying, is that you should feel free to
experiment with the ingredients and quantities, and after all, you’re only
experimenting on your family. 8-)
Enjoy!
