Being a recovering Californian who now lives in Pennsylvania Dutch country, we've learned that the bread mixture that goes into a turkey is known by several different names: stuffing, filling, and dressing. I don't know about your Thanksgiving dinner, or other dinners involving a turkey and stuffing, but one of my favorite parts of the meal is the stuffing. We love it enough that we typically make at least one extra pan of stuffing in addition that that which was inside of the bird.
Of course, part of any Thanksgiving meal is leftovers. There are lots of recipes and suggestions for what to do with any leftover turkey -- sandwiches with its many variations (mayonaisse and pepper, cream cheese and cranberry sauce, stuffing, hot/cold), turkey soup, casseroles, turkey tetrazinni, etc.. That handles the turkey but what do you do with leftover stuffing?
This brief post is definitely not French and certainly not found in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" but I wanted to share it. Hey, its my blog so I can post what I want, right? Of course, you can read and not read what you want so I hope you choose to read just these couple of paragraphs. In case you haven't tried this before, here's one of my family's favorite uses of leftover stuffing and it makes a great breakfast to start the day. Trying to be French I call it "Stuffing a la Oeufs" but it really is "Stuffing with Fried Egg."
First, a large skillet (well, large enough to hold the amount of leftover stuffing you want to eat) is heated to a medium high to high heat. I use a non-stick skillet without any butter or grease but you could ad a coating to the pan if you want. Then enough stuffing is added to the pan for the meal plus any snitching you may do while making this. It is completely up to your personal taste but we like to have some little crispy pieces of the stuffing. Not burnt, but just browned enough with some of the stuffing to give little bits of crunch. Simply heat the stuffing and stir/flip/turn it over from time to time to heat evenly.
While the stuffing is heating I like to cook two sunny-side-up fried eggs (more or less if you want). We like to keep the egg yolk runny but you certainly may cook them as hard as you want. The stuffing is placed on the plate and the eggs are placed on top of that. A little pepper on top to taste and you're done and ready to eat. We love piercing the yolk and letting it mix in with the stuffing as we eat it. It does sound a bit savage but this is one of our favorite post-Thanksgiving breakfasts. A similar variation can also be done using mashed potatoes if you are trying to find a use for them as well.
If you've run out of stuffing already, don't despair! Christmas is just around the corner and you can have a second chance. In our family's opinion, if you've never had this dish your missing out. Try it, you'll like it!
Bon Appetit!
Comments