Holiday Classic: Dressing

We are days away from Thanksgiving here is my holiday dressing. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.

I'm in the Miami airport, Cleveland bound, having been a part of the amazing Miami Book Fair to promote my new collection of novellas, In Short Measures, love stories. Met some hero fiction writers, such as Elizabeth McCracken, whose "Thunderstruck" is one of the best short stories I've read in years. Also Mary Gaitskill, who scares the shit out of me, Rick Moody, who does not, Mary Karr, on whom I crush, and new writer friends Les Standiford, John Dufresne, and Cindi Chinelly. What a great fair, thanks to Mitchell Kaplan and Books & Books.

Reposting the following for those looking for a delicious and simple Thanksgiving dressing:

The nice thing about blogging as opposed to newspapering is that I don't feel the obligation to always come up with a new way of roasting turkey or a new stuffing or a new cranberry sauce or a new kind of gravy. The classics are classics. So, herewith, the way I make "stuffing," just as good as last year's.

I stopped stuffing our Thanksgiving turkey reluctantly, as the stuffing was always my favorite part of the meal when Grandma Spamer made it. But my goal became a perfectly cooked bird, and you can't cook a turkey perfectly if it's stuffed. So now I make what we must refer to as dressing, no matter what Mario says ("That's what you put on a salad."). Dressing denotes that it's stuffing cooked in a pan.

And it can still be the very best part of the meal! Thanks to a versatile ratio, it's a no brainer. Dressing, and there are infinite variations, is little more than a savory bread pudding. To make a great dressing you make the liquid a custard, the ratio for which is 2 parts liquid and 1 part egg, here 24 ounces stock (flavor!) and 12 ounces (6) eggs. The rest is the flavoring.

Here I use leeks and sage, and nothing more. Simple. But feel free to improvise: add sautéed mushrooms, celery (sweated with the leeks); replace the leeks with onion, or fennel; add chestnuts. Or swap in a cup of white wine for the stock. There's no limit to what you can do with a dressing like this, provided you use a good, flavorful custard.

A secret I don't usually mention: during the cooking and before serving, I spoon some sizzling hot turkey fat over it to make sure it's truly succulent and tastes like my dear Grandma Spamer's.

If you liked this post on Dressing, check out these other posts:

• My recent holiday posts on Roasted & Braised Turkey, Roasted Vegetables and Potato Gratin, and  Butternut Squash Soup.
• Don't forget about making turkey stock!
• Find local heritage turkeys on Local Harvest.
• Here are some of the Ruhlman items I use: our offset basting spoons and an offset serving spoon.

© 2015 Michael Ruhlman. Photo © 2015 Donna Turner-Ruhlman. All rights reserved.