It was for Thanksgiving, the meat holiday that is always a challenge to the unmeaters among us, especially when you’re contending with relatives’ oyster stuffing family recipe. Ick.
I found this one on Epicurious. It's my favorite resource for recipes, since you can limit the search to Gourmet Magazine (which I find superior to all other magazines with recipes). It’s called Hazelnut, Sage, and Mushroom Stuffing. The description is as follows: “it tastes like a gift from the forest”; I’m not sure I’d use those words myself, but I’ll put them here in quotes, so you know that it's not me who ventured into the world of cheesy. (Although I’ll gladly take a tour through the land of cheese, if that’s available…!)
Anyway, here’s what it called for (with my modifications):
- White bread (I used rye—whoah!)
- Shallots
- Baby bellas
- Butter (Earth Balance)
- Celery (added extra)
- Fresh thyme and sage
- White wine (I used a good one)
- Parsley
- Toasted hazelnuts
- Eggs (yes I used those, you need a binding agent)
Making it was time-consuming. Partly chopping, partly assembling, partly toasting hazelnuts, which isn’t so difficult in and of itself, but using the towel to rub off the skins is a real pain in the butt. Oh, and the nuts got a little burned so I had to cut off the burned sides, too. I’d recommend buying extras, in case of emergency. Or you could keep a very tiny knife on hand for cutting out burned hazelnut corners.
But oh my the stuffing was fabulous!! It was nutty, moist (I hate that word, so you know I really liked it if I’m using it!), sagey, mushroomy, toasty, ryey (good call!), and so much better than what you remember from childhood with the sausages and the onion soup mix. This was no stove-top! Yummers. Even the die-hard oysters and sausages agreed!
The mushroom gravy, on the other hand:
My advice: don’t blend it. Mushrooms like to be chunky, not smooth. So they tell me.
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