Stuffing or Dressing?

[Ramblin Wreck]

Around here, dressing rules (usually including a lot of chicken or turkey and the moister the better), and it is very rare (except for northern transplants) to see stuffing served. What's on the table at your place?...and please don't say lutefisk.

[doodlemom]

When I was growing up we never had stuffing. Then I wanted to have Thanksgivings like the ones on TV, but my mom and grandmother said it was stupid and people who stuff turkeys get sick from the stuffing and we kids wouldn't eat it anyway. Then I'd be looking at the turkey thinking how come ours isn't surrounded by fancy picture perfect this and that. Isn't there supposed to be a green bean casserole or pumpkin pie? We have sweet rice pudding on Thanksgiving? I didn't see sweet rice pudding on TV. We're having ham for Easter.

[Raeven]

As I was growing up, the terms were used interchangeably. I see from a quick Google that some consider "stuffing" what comes out of the bird, and "dressing" -- which is concocted of the same ingredients -- what comes out of the pan but served on the side. Makes sense to me. So I guess we had both.

According to the roolz stated above, I had stuffing growing up, but now serve dressing. I prefer it less moist, a little crisp on the top and not something I have to dig out of a carcass before serving it at the table.

ditto


Bostonians serve stuffing stuffed in the bird.."dressing" is stuffing which wasn't stuffed..just baked in the oven ..LOL...we have both

[Raeven]

Of more interest to me is, how do you concoct your stuffing/dressing? What HAS to be in it? Are there negotiable items?

I was raised on the standard bread model, and that is still what I prefer. However, my stepmom has a fondness for the cornbread variety. I enjoy cornbread, but I find it a terrible medium for stuffing/dressing -- especially the way my stepmom makes it. She either over-moistens, resulting in a sort of... lump of cornbread spackling agent, or she under-moistens, which ends up as something best used to pull excess moisture out of waterlogged carpeting. If you don't pour ridiculous amounts of gravy on it, you don't have a hope of choking it down.

So... mine is based on homemade French bread, with liberal amounts of onion and celery sauteed in way too much butter (it's only a couple times a year!) and seasoned with sage and thyme. Occasionally, I like to toss in some cooked, crumbled sausage or pecans, maybe a handful of dried cranberries. These are just for fun or to suit the tastes of loved ones. I've added oysters on request as well.

I do make and serve a cornbread variety if my stepmom is visiting for the holiday.

What about yours?

[starjj]

Originally Posted by Ramblin Wreck

Around here, dressing rules (usually including a lot of chicken or turkey and the moister the better), and it is very rare (except for northern transplants) to see stuffing served. What's on the table at your place?...and please don't say lutefisk.

LUTEFISK OH YUK

AND I am Norwegian still would never eat THAT.

Tell me what is the difference between dressing and stuffing. We always said stuffing but then I am from the North.

[jwal10]

Dressing with wild rice, apples, black walnuts and cranberries....James

[Ramblin Wreck]

Originally Posted by Raeven

Of more interest to me is, how do you concoct your stuffing/dressing? What HAS to be in it? Are there negotiable items?...What about yours?

I made a big pan of dressing a couple of weeks ago out of some baked rosemary chicken that just didn't have much taste (still eating that stuff...and it's getting old). It turned out great once I mixed it in with the dressing ingredients. Mine/ours is corn bread based. I make one or two pones of cornbread and crumble it. I then add a liberal amount of broth to moisten it. Then comes lots of onions (green/yellow/white/whatever you have). I do add sage and sometimes rosemary if I have it. Celery is kinda' hit or miss down here. I don't add it, but lots of folks do. Anyway, once it is all mixed up, I bake it until it looks brown and crusty on the top. (Usually I slow cook a whole chicken in the crock pot and debone it, using the broth in the mix. For this tasteless baked chicken, I added canned broth.)

Edited for starjj: Most of the stuffing I've eaten was baked inside a turkey and was often bread crumb based, rather than corn meal/bread based. There's a restaurant near me called Phat Phils, and he makes a hybrid concoction that has some stuffing and some dressing characteristics. Phil is originally from Michigan, so dressing is a new thing for him. His version is OK...only OK. But you gotta' love a restaurant where the owner's mother is snapping beans and shucking corn in the dining room while you are chowing down for lunch.

[tambo]

Chicken and dressing. I've never had stuffing. I love it moist with cranberry sauce.

[mickm]

I eill dkip both, but i will tske seconds of everything else!

[FarmboyBill]

DFad had a saying. Fulla S _ _ _ as a Christmas Goose. He ment that people used to put lots of stuffing in their geese. We call it dressing. It ISNT in the bird.

[newfieannie]

we call it dressing and we stuff it in the bird. made from cubes of bread,onion,poultry seasoning and a little melted butter. a very plain dressing but the only one i like. ~Georgia.

[Tommyice]

Stuffing. Only stuffing. Never dressing. Dressing is when you put your clothes on.

My stuffing recipe is my mother's stuffing recipe. Saute onions and celery (chopped, diced, sliced, whatever) in a lot of butter. Squeeze water through a loaf of bread (day old is good). Tear up the bread, add in the butter, onions, celery, salt, pepper, sage, rosemary, thyme. Apples chunks if you have them. Mix it all up with an egg. Use your hands--spoons and spatulas are no good here. Shove it in the bird. Yummmmmm.

onions, celery, sage, salt, pepper, day-old bread toasted and then cut into cubes, lots of real butter, and chopped giblets from the turkey

[Jaclynne]

We call it stuffing if it is bread based, dressing if it is cornbread based. Doesn't matter if you stuff the bird or not. Ususally not, because to get the dressing/stuffed cooked you have to overcook the bird you cramed it into.

I find just bread based stuffing to gluey? I can't describe it, I just don't care for the texture.

I like dressing = cornbread crumbs, whole wheat bread crumbs, sauteed onions, celery, chopped pecans, broth, seasoning (not a fan of sage),etc. I make several variations, one with apples and maple sausage, one with cranberries and wild rice, others, but they all start with a cornbread base.

[CesumPec]

We call it dressing because we don't stuff. We like the stuffing so much, the bird wouldn't be able to hold enough.

The recipe starts months before. Any left over biscuits, bread ends, corn muffins, pitas (just about any non-yeast bread) gets stored in the freezer. Roasted chicken carcasses, with lots of meat left on them, are boiled down with chopped giblets to make the broth and that gets frozen till needed as well.

Combine thawed crumbled bread with the Simon and Garfunkle ingredients, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Also add so much salt and pepper that you think you've done way too much, lots of garlic, a couple of crumbled hard boiled eggs, a couple of raw eggs to act as a binder, and enough of the broth/meat/giblets to get the mixture fairly soggy. We like ours with lots of meat.

Place in a greased cast iron skillet and bake covered at 350F for an hour, then uncovered until browned. it is done when you can stick it with a fork and it is slightly moist but not mushy wet in the middle.

The rest of the broth you didn't use in the stuffing gets combined with drippings from roasting the turkey to make the gravy.

The turkey carcass and giblets get cooked down in a few days to make stuffing the next time.

[summerdaze]

I've always used those two terms interchangably as well. I don't really care for it as much inside the bird. It's always a bit on the mushy side, and a bit greasy too. Don't care for the looks of it either...like the bird had an accident or something.

[Bret]

Originally Posted by Tommyice

Stuffing. Only stuffing. Never dressing. Dressing is when you put your clothes on.

My stuffing recipe is my mother's stuffing recipe. Saute onions and celery (chopped, diced, sliced, whatever) in a lot of butter. Squeeze water through a loaf of bread (day old is good). Tear up the bread, add in the butter, onions, celery, salt, pepper, sage, rosemary, thyme. Apples chunks if you have them. Mix it all up with an egg. Use your hands--spoons and spatulas are no good here. Shove it in the bird. Yummmmmm.

We use both words. Stuffing is when I put my jeans on the day after thanksgiving.

[Terri]

When I think of dressing, I think Ranch or Italian?

Stuffing is much better eaten with turkey!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SimplerTimez]

Dressing is what we call it, although the package my mom uses (and I've often used) says 'stuffing' on the outside. I don't like to cook it inside of the bird - too mushy and I like mine moist but toasted nicely on the top.

I've made corn-bread and regular bread dressing - always must have butter, celery, onions, mushrooms, rosemary, sage, thyme and chicken broth. Sometimes I will add turkey sausage or beef sausage to it, but that's recent.

~ST