We’re being hosted by friends on Christmas Day but I’ve been asked to take along some stuffing. It is something I’ve made before but not for a while so I decided to trawl back through my collection of cookery books and see what hints I could find. Honestly, the yield was a little disappointing and the few recipes I did turn up were mainly for things like ‘orange and cranberry stuffing’. I’m sure that’s lovely but I just wanted something simple that would complement the main meal rather than trying to draw too much attention to itself.

The best result was a recipe from the Hairy Biker’s British Classics book but even that wasn’t going to straightforward. I didn’t have a ready supply of turkey livers and, since one of the guests is lactose intolerant, I couldn’t soften the onions in butter. Instead, after also consulting a few online sources, I developed my own version with a test batch and, following a few refinements, the final version (now frozen and ready for the big day). Here’s what I ended up with:

100g breadcrumbs
80g chestnuts (pre-cooked)
c. 140g loosely chopped onion (red or white)
5-10g dried sage
salt and pepper
400g 15% fat pork mince
1 medium egg

I added each ingredient to the food processor in turn, using the blade to chop them up before adding the next one. When processed, the pork mince becomes like sausage meat and I’m not entirely sure the egg was needed (in my first iteration, I had twice the amount of breadcrumbs and it was more important then). The mix was shaped into walnut-sized balls (a convenient size using a small ladle I had available) and went into a fan oven pre-heated to 175°C. After ten minutes, they were eased off the surface and turned; after another ten minutes they got turned again and combined in one pan and, after a final ten minutes, they were ready (some for dinner and most to cool on a rack and then freeze on a parchment lined tray ready to bag up and take over to our hosts).

Sometime soon, I might give them another try. In particular, I’m interested to know if the egg can be dispensed with and whether the chestnuts (the hardest to obtain ingredient) really brings much to the table at that proportion.