Sunday, March 18, 2007

Recipe #2: Roast Turkey with Grand Marnier Apricot Stuffing

Recently, when faced with a growing number of dinner guests, I decided to make a turkey, even though it was the beginning of March, and there wasn’t really any traditional turkey days in the offing. Odd that – turkey is cheap, turkey is easy, and turkey is tasty, but I always fall into the Thanksgiving/Christmas trap of preparing turkey only then. But I grew bold and broke out of the mold, and roasted up a very fine turkey. The hit of the meal, though, was the stuffing.

Credit for this recipe goes to the Silver Palate, Good Times Cook Book. Contrary to a lot of the “gourmet” items in that cookbook line, this stuffing is a snap to make, and requires no hard-to-get ingredients. However, it does necessitate the purchase of a bottle of Grand Marnier, which at least at the local Freddy’s – comes quite dear. Thus, the $40/bottle expense for the Grand Marnier obliterated the cheap turkey, but as it also was very good in its typical role of an after-dinner drink, it was enjoyed by all that came to the turkey dinner. A worthy investment.

Grand Marnier Apricot Stuffing (enough for a 21 – 24 # turkey)

Ingredients:

1 cup diced dried apricots
1 ½ cups Grand Marnier
Turkey liver and heart
1 cup (two sticks) butter
2 cups coarsely chopped celery
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 pound bulk pork sausage (reindeer would work too)
1 pound herb stuffing mix
1 cup slivered almonds
2 cups chicken stock
½ teaspoon dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

1. Place the apricots and 1 cup of the Grand Marnier in a small saucepan. Heat to boiling. Remove from the heat & set aside. Simmer the turkey heart and liver in water to cover in a small saucepan for 5 minutes; set aside to cool.

2. Melt ½ cup of the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the celery and onion and sauté for 10 minutes. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.

3. Cook the pork sausage in the same skillet, crumbling with a fork, until it is no longer pink. Remove from the heat & add to the celery mixture.

4. Add the stuffing mix, apricots with liquid, and almonds. Finely dice the turkey heart and liver and add to the stuffing mixture; stir to combine.

5. Heat the remaining ½ cup butter and the stock in a small saucepan just until the butter melts. Pour over the stuffing mixture, and add the remaining ½ cup Grand Marnier. Stir well to moisten the stuffing. Season with the thyme and add salt and pepper to taste.

3 comments:

CabinDweller said...

Hmm. I'm guessing that the Dubya photo relates to the turkey theme?

FlictheBic said...

Well, mais oui....

Ishmael said...

Sounds great... but does one then put the stuffing in the bird and cook it all up?