Finally...a food topic! Dressing or Stuffing?

[HomeRacingWorld]

Stuffin'! :)
Try grinding up White Castles and stuff them in that boid :)

[goosenapper]

Stuffing. You stuff it in the bird, right? Dressing only goes on a salad, as far as I'm concerned.

However, my wife makes her stuffing outside of the bird, consisting of mashed potatoes, bread, and some sort of seasoning. My sister-in-law makes her stuffing out of pineapple, bread, and marshmellows, also being cooked on its own, and usually served with ham. So perhaps stuffing doesn't have anything to do with being in the bird, but is actually named after what it does to us: stuffs our gullets!

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Stuffing cooks inside the bird, dressing is an older dish, from the time when meals were cooked over an open flame. The dressing is a "rough" (quick) bread dish, like cornbread or oatmeal bread (no yeast), lots of seasoning, and drenched after baking with a light sauce or gravy. I use chicken broth, and I make it with cornbread, sage, sauteed onions and celery, canned chicken meat shredded, chopped boiled eggs, and lotsa love... its my grandmother's recipe. Because poultry today is not necessarily processed in the cleanest facilities, and hardly anyone still kills and cleans turkeys or chickens at home, most folks don't eat what they stuff the bird with for health concerns. Processed in-the-box stuffing is different, it is flavored like the stuffing from inside the bird, but can be whipped up on the stove in minutes. I use that dried stuffing mix in my meatloaves instead of crackers.

[FootScoot]

Rob, using the box type stuffing in meatloaf is brilliant! ;) I'm going to try it in my next one. Thanks for the tip. :)

[Czar]

Most people have stopped stuffing the bird's cavity because it makes proper cooking too difficult. Hot air, that would normally circulate over and through the bird is blocked by the mass of stuffing. The stuffing will never get hot enough to cook the bird from the inside, so all the heat must radiate downward through the muscle to to cook the bird to a safe and done temperature (160 F breast, 170 F thighs.) This usually means the outer layers of meat are way overcooked and dry. If the stuffing doesn't reach 160 F it can carry pathogens from the juices of the bird. For these reasons, most people prefer to cook the "stuffing" outside the bird. I would call this "dressing" but the semantic distinction is your choice.

[Florida_Slotter]

Interesting topic. Lots of good logic here.

Stuffing is cooked inside while dressing is cooked outside.

What about the label on the material most of us use to make it. Pepperidge Farm calls it "Stuffing" on their packaging, so should it be called 'dressing' if you don't put it in the cavity?

When you deep fry a turkey, you can not have it stuffed. Also when you cook your bird on the grill, having the cavity filled with anything makes it harder to get it cooked all the way through.

In my family, when we moved to Florida back in 1974, we decided to create our own special 'stuff' to eat with our turkey dinner on Thanksgiving. When we moved here, we rented a home that was out in the middle of a large field and since it was only my wife and myself, we did not need a large home. Hence the house was knows as "The Little House on the Prairie". There was a large cattle ranch just down the road and the constant baying of the cattle kind of supported that image.

Our recipe:
1 bag of Pepperidge Farm Cornbread Stuffing
1 stick of butter
1 pound of pecans (chopped)
1 package of Jimmy Dean Whole Hog Sausage (your choice of taste)
1 package of Kon Rico Pecan rice
3 carrots
3 celery stalks
1 small onion
poultry seasoning

Just start with browning the sausage in a pot, cook the rice separately, chop up the pecans, carrots, celery and onion. When the sausage is browned, add the butter, water, pecans, carrots, celery, onions and cooked rice. Stir and it's ready to eat. Enjoy.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Stuffing and dressing are completely different things. Stuffing is extremely moist to help prevent drying of the bird being roasted. Dressing has never had anything to do with the inside of the bird. It has always been baked outside the bird, at first in a closed tin in the coals of the fire, then in the oven. I stuff my birds with whole onions, celery and fresh herbs (whole rosemary, thyme, etc.), and nothing else. Some folks like for the onions, celery and other elements to be in a wet glob that is stuffed inside. It has the same purpose, to keep the bird moist. Its very important to use a good, instant read thermometer as mentioned above, because overcooking is a critical problem with roast fowl. Remember that the bird continues to cook after it comes out of the oven. If you anticipate the increase in temperature by about 7 degrees, you should get a moist tender bird. After all, if, after the bird has been out of the oven a few minutes, and hasn't reached the critical temps cited above, you can put it back in. You can't put moisture back into the meat. For steak, I jump the temp by 10 degrees, for fowl 7 degrees, for pork 9 degrees. It makes a big difference, don't think the odd numbers don't have a lot of experience behind them. For the most accurate "doneness" temps, look to "The Joy of Cooking" as a solid reference.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

One more thing... Don't confuse Northeastern "Oyster Dressing" with the traditional kinds. There are things to be done for unbelievably tasty oyster dressing that are completely outside the normal idea of dressing. Its so good, you might want to forget the rest of the meal.

Its like a really fine slotburger-- you tend to think about the potatoes and salad as extra- you want the slotburger.

[4424ever]

DAM Way you keep talkin like this and I'm going to buy the house next door :happy-jumpeveryone: I could use a few pounds anyway :lol:

[waaytoomuchintothis]

We came close once-- I lived for 3 years in London South, right down the road from you. I even worked for the famous Turner Drug Store as a boy.

[RazorJon]

My wife cooks all that stuff thats in the sack you get with the turkey, then adds sausage and celery, onions and she makes her own bread crumbs, man with a little gravy :mrgreen:

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Now that brings up a subject I have always been interested in. There are folks in my family who eat internal organs. Like liver, gizzard, heart, kidney, chitterlings (that's really how you spell chittlins, can you believe it?). I can't stand the thought of it (with the exception of fried chittlins), and I have eaten some weird stuff over the years, like squirrel, elk, possum (ick), iguana (delicious), frogs, mountain oysters, pig trotters, hog jowl, cooter (terrepin), sea turtle, boiled peanuts (also delicious), bizarre fruits in South America, eel pie, haggis, and lots of other stuff.

How many of you eat internal organs (the bag of guts that comes in a chicken, duck, or turkey)? And that goes for the more customary internal organs, like beef or calf liver, kidneys, etc.

[Tubby]

I can dig some chicken livers or beef liver and onions! Not much on Kidneys but I don't cull much and my figure shows it!!!!!! I guess round is a figure! :lol:

Tubby

[RazorJon]

a few times a year mom would cook tongue, and we ate all of the squirrel, brains where my moms favorite, I have eaten snake, grasshoppers, frog legs, crawfish, then soul food like poke, blood sausage, scrapple, sassafras tea and watermelon wine


EVER TAKE A DINGDONG AND SMEAR A TABLE SPOON OF PEANUT BUTTER ON IT

[Florida_Slotter]

Many years ago we were working down in Peru. Our company had a contract to put telephone switching systems in to 10 towns. We had 2 teams, one for the south and one for the north. I wound up on the south team.

I found out that "Fresh Water Shrimp" was actually crawfish - not an issue.

One of my friends was on the northern team. He told me about the "Surf & Turf" he had one night. One of the Peruvians on my team started to smile. He shared with my later that was "Water Buffalo and Crawfish". No, I never shared with my friend. I simply smile every time he tells that tale.

I was offered Guinea Pig one night. I politely refused.

Roasted pork was always a challenge. Once you get past the hairs, it's good eating.