Now, I can't have regular old linguica either. For those of you who don't know, linguica is a Portuguese sausage made from pork, garlic and paprika. Chourico is its spicier cousin. But most of them also add vinegar and nitrites to the mix. Enter La Tienda. It is a company that imports Spanish foods and ships them out of Virginia, USA. They sell Palacios Mild Chorizo Sausage (available at LaTienda.com) that is fabulous added to bread stuffing and its only ingredients are pork, paprika, salt, and garlic. It's dry cured and ready to eat, so you can render it in a pan for your stuffing, but you can also eat it sliced as part of an antipasto plate. Excuse this shameless advertising picture and consider it for what it is--a fab resource to replace the sausage that is stuffed with artificial preservative...
Now on to the recipe....
You can make this Flourless Cornbread two days ahead if you like. Earlier than that and you can use it to play frisbee with your teenaged cousins on Thanksgiving morning.
- 2 cups corn meal, divided
- 1/2 cup boiling water (boil first, then measure)
- 1 T honey
- 1 t. salt
- 2 t. baking powder
- 1 t. baking soda
- 1 egg
- 1 1/4 c. buttermilk or plain yogurt, not Greek yogurt (Why yogurt? Because buttermilk is sold in quart sized jars and what are you gonna do with the rest of it?)
- 2 T oil. I use sunflower oil, use anything you like.
In a bowl large enough to fit all of the ingredients, mix the boiling water into 1/2 cup of the corn meal with the honey and salt to make a smooth porridge. In a second bowl, mix the baking powder and baking soda into the remaining corn meal. Beat the dry ingredients into the corn meal mush. (That's what my mother called it when she served it to us for breakfast with maple syrup swirled in.) Make a crater in the middle and add the egg, buttermilk and oil. Mix it all together with a wooden spoon.
Now grease an oven-proof skillet (preferable non-stick, or well-seasoned cast iron) and heat it over the stove top until it's nice and hot. Pour the batter into the skillet and bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 25 minutes.
Let the cornbread cool for 5 minutes in the pan and then turn it out onto a wooden cutting board or a rack and let cool completely. If you put it on a plate, the residual heat will create too much steam underneath it. If you are making it a couple of days ahead of time, wait until it cool completely, then wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.
The Stuffing
One recipe is enough to fill a 12 to 16 lb. turkey. This recipe can be doubled for a really large turkey. If you make too much, you can always bake the extra in another pan and baste it frequently with the pan drippings from the turkey pan.
- 1/2 stick of unsalted butter (I know, I know...but it's Thanksgiving! You can use 1/4 stick and throw in 2 tablespoons of olive oil if it makes you feel better. Whatever you do, don't use margarine....please. Really.)
- 1 large onion, chopped, diced
- 4 celery stalks, including tops, diced
- 4 cloves of minced garlic, (only IF you are NOT using the chorizo)
- 1 4-inch piece of Palacios Mild Chourizo sausage, diced (optional)
- 1 disc of flourless cornbread
- 1 Tablespoon of Bell's poultry seasoning. When I say "Tablespoon", in this case, I mean a small handful.
- 1/2 to 1 tsp dried red pepper flakes
- 4 cups of chicken stock. I use Imagine brand free range chicken broth. No sugar, no yeast extract, no additives, no junk.
- Salt to taste
Melt the butter (and olive oil) in a saute pan large enough to hold all the veggies and the chorizo. Throw in the onion and celery and cook over medium low heat until translucent and completely cooked. You want the keep the heat low enough that the vegetables turn just barely golden after they are completely softened. They should not be allowed to dry out at all. Add the garlic OR chorizo for the last 2 minutes.
While the veggies are cooking, break up the cornbread into 1 inch chunks in a very large bowl. It is fairly crumbly, so this is easy to do with your hands, no cutting required. Once the veggies are done, pour them into the bowl over the cornbread and toss to mix. Sprinkle in the poultry seasoning and red pepper flakes and mix. Now add 2 cups of the chicken stock and mix. Then add 1 cup at a time until the bread is all well-moistened. I add about 1 teaspoon of salt. You may need more if you omit the chorizo. Part of the beauty of this stuffing is that it does not require the addition of an egg (there's already an egg in the bread), so you can safely taste it for seasoning before it is cooked.
After you have cleaned the turkey and are ready to put it in the oven, you can stuff the cavity with your flourless cornbread stuffing. Please don't stuff it ahead of time and let it sit. There is always a chance the warmth of the stuffing will turn your turkey into a lab experiment. Do yourself a favor and put it in the oven right away. I never truss my turkey, so I use the pan juices to baste the exposed part of the stuffing at least every hour, more frequently the last hour of cooking.
If you are making some of this in a separate pan, bake it tightly covered in foil for at least an hour and baste it liberally. It will need the extra pan drippings to keep it moist. You can uncover it the last 15 minutes or so to develop a nice crust.
And finally, the last "if". If you are a vegetarian, you can make this with garlic, omit the chorizo and use Imagine brand vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. You will need a little more salt and hot pepper flakes to offset the sweeter flavor of the vegetable broth. You may also want to keep a small saucepan of broth warm on the stove for basting.
Enjoy!
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