Mimi's Turkey Dressing

A Thanksgiving Cornbread Dressing 

INGRIDIENTS 

1-1/2 cup yellow or Vidalia onion, chopped 

2 cups celery, chopped 

1/2 cup butter, melted 

6 cups corn bread (may use gluten free mix) 

4 slices or more white bread, toasted (may use gluten free bread) 

1 bunch of green onions, chopped 

1/2 cup of parsley, minced 

4 eggs 

Hot broth (1/2 - 1 cup) 

Black pepper to taste 

Poultry seasoning or dried sage (1 - 1-1/2 teaspoons)

PREP (In Mimi's exact words, see notes for practical tips) 

Sauté onions and celery slowly in butter until soft, not brown, and keep in refrigerator. Add broth mixture to crumbled breads and mix well. (Use canned broth if you don't have enough and you may use some milk). Beat eggs and add. Add seasonings. May stuff chicken or turkey but I like to cook in casserole at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Make broth by cooking liver giblets and neck in water to cover. Add onion and a piece of celery, salt and pepper. 

NOTES

Put the cornbread mix into a buttered 9x13 casserole dish. Cover with foil for the first 35 minutes and remove for the last 10-15 minutes. 

No need to put sautéed vegetables in refrigerator unless you are making them a day ahead, which she often did. 

If using poultry seasoning or dried sage, add this to the onions when you sauté them. If using fresh sage, add when mixing ingredients. 

I estimated the amount of broth in ingredients list above to be 1/2 to 1 cup. She did not specify. I have learned from my sister and cousin who make this often, that it needs too be much "soupier" than you think so it doesn't dry out. So add more if you need to. 

Don't sauté the green onion or parsley. Put those in raw. You can also try leaving the celery out when you sauté the onions and put them in fresh, too, for some extra crunch (Ina Garten does this in her version). I really like the green onion and parsley in Mimi's version and think it makes the dish more visually pleasing and the taste is a bit "fresher" than other versions.

I estimated the poultry seasoning/sage to be 1-1/2 teaspoons; she did not specify. She suggested to use one or the other. If you want to use both, use 1 teaspoon of each. 

I use Bob's Red Mill gluten free cornbread mix and it works well. Make sure your mix, if using, isn't too sweet. 

Dressing is baked in a casserole dish and stuffing is stuffed in a turkey to bake.

Fresh broth makes all the difference. 

Mimi's Giblet Gravy

My grandmother, Dorothy Jane Wiley, known as Mimi, took tremendous price in her gravy and cornbread stuffing. She hovered over a small saucepan in the hours before the turkey was ready. When my cousin Melanie was married, she documented all her recipes in a hand written cookbook called, In the Kitchen with Mimi (which inspired the name for this blog). My Aunt had the book photocopied duplicated and it is my source for those two favorite Thanksgiving recipes of hers. 

Giblets is a culinary term for the edible offal of a fowl, typically including the heart, gizzard, liver, and other organs. A whole bird from a butcher is often packaged with the giblets, sometimes sealed in a bag within the body cavity, which you remove before cooking. 

Yield: 3 cups

INGRIDIENTS

Turkey giblets and neck, washed 

1 celery stalk, cut up

1 medium onion, peeled and cut into quarters 

1 medium carrot, peeled or pared with paring knife and cut cup coarsely

1 tsp salt 

4 whole black peppercorns 

2 cups of turkey or chicken broth (original recipe called for 1 can condensed chicken broth) 

1/3 cup of flour 

PREP

Put liver in refrigerator until ready to use. Place remaining giblets and neck in a 2 quart sauce pan. Add 3 cups of water, the celery, onion, carrot, salt and pepper. 

Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer covered 2-1/2 hours or until giblets are tender. Add liver and simmer 15 mintues. Discard neck. Remove giblets from broth and coarsely chop or leave out if you don’t want to use. 

Strain broth, pressing vegetables through a mesh strainer with broth. Measure. Add enough undiluted can broth to make 2 1/2 cups. 

When Turkey is removed from roasting pan, add drippings into a 1 cup measure. Remove fat from surface and discard. 

Make a roux with 1/3 cup drippings and flour in a saucepan. Stir over very low fire to brown flour slightly. Remove from heat. Gradually stir in broth. Bring to boil, stirring; reduce heat, simmer stirring until gravy thickens and is smooth. Add giblets, simmer 5 minutes. 

NOTES

• This is Mimi's recipe, intended from start to finish to happen on Thanksgiving morning. I have begun to make Turkey stock ahead of time and start on Thanksgiving with broth instead of water and reducing cooking time to 1 hour with giblets, then 15 additional minutes for the liver. 
• You may want to use your liver for your bread stuffing, in which case leave it out of the gravy. 
• For a gluten free gravy, use cassava flour, but watch carefully as it browns much faster than regular flour. 
• Mimi’s original recipe says you can add sliced, hard boiled eggs, but I left that step out.