Thanksgiving Dressing Tweetcipe

Bread dressing is one of those rare dishes that allows one’s locality, family traditions and imagine create a delicious and unique compliment to the traditional Thanksgiving turkey and ham.  Depending on the region of the country, popular additions to the mixture of bread (which might be white, dark and/or cornbread), sautéd vegetables and liquid may be oysters, sausage, giblets, chestnuts, pecans, boiled egg, mushrooms, apple or dried fruit.  Also milk and eggs may be the liquid of choice for a more custard type dressing or chicken stock for a meatier, sturdier textured dressing.

This is the recipe I’ll be serving at my table on Thanksgiving Day.  I’m not throwing anything fancy in it, this time, but rather bumping up the flavor with buttermilk and onions, which will let the giblet gravy ladled on top be the star of the dish.  This recipe can be stuffed in the bird, using Alton Brown’s method of preheating the dressing, but then the chicken broth should be decreased to ½ cup.

1 box of cornbread, prepared, cooled and crumbled Don’t add the sugar if it’s called for in the recipe on the box.  Also, I use buttermilk instead of  regular milk.

1 bag of dried cubed bread, found at Whole Foods

1 stick of unsalted butter

2 medium onions, chopped

1 large carrot, peeled and grated

2 stalks of celery, chopped

Handful of fresh sage leaves, chopped

1 Tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 egg

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 cup chicken broth

Heat oven to 350°. Generously butter a 9x13-inch baking pan. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cornbread and bread crumbs.  In a small skillet over medium-low heat, melt butter; add carrot, celery and onion; sauté until tender. In a medium bowl whisk egg, buttermilk and broth together.  Combine vegetable mixture with crumbs; stir in egg mixture, herbs and seasonings.  Spread in prepared baking pan. Bake for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out relatively clean.