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Sage, Walnut and Dried Fig Stuffing Recipe
October 21, 2006 | 24 Comments
There is a long, rambling, round-about story of how I got to today's stuffing recipe. Here goes...after posting my reading and movie list earlier this month a few of my friends started heckling me. Their jabs typically went along the lines of, "where was Project Runway/America's Next Top Model/ Celebrity Fit Club on your list?" Indeed. I'm guilty of being easily sucked in by a number of reality television shows, and particularly susceptible to the back-to-back marathons. As you can imagine, there is a never ending stream of dishes threatening to pile up in my sink and these are the times when there is no better pairing than a three foot pile of dirty pots and a triple-header of just about any show on Bravo. It's not all classics and Criterion Collection around here.
After watching the first episode of Top Chef this week I started thinking about flambé (this was the challenge technique). I started thinking about how I can't remember the last time I flambeed anything so I was going to hang this post on some sort of flambé recipe. Didn't happen. I got distracted when Linda Haynes from ACE Bakery mailed me a copy of her new book, More from ACE Bakery. It's a follow up to her best seller from 13 years ago. There was a fantastic sounding stuffing recipe a few pages in, and in preparation for the coming holiday season I wanted to give it a go -I ended up doing a slightly adapted veg-friendly version of her stuffing based on what was available down at the market this morning.
Freshly shelled walnuts.
The great thing about this stuffing recipe is that you can prep most of the components in the days ahead of a big gathering, and just toss everything together at the last minute before baking (bread cubes, cranberries, candied nuts, etc). Keep track of this stuffing between now and the holidays, it is a hearty, delicious, fragrant, savory stuffing punctuated with a pop of sweet from the decadent dried figs.
There were also a handful of other recipes that sounded good to me this time of year: Pear, Hazelnut and Oatmeal Scones, Spiced Pear Ketchup, and Crispy Carrot Parsnip Cakes with Spinach-Yogurt Sauce.
Frosty cranberries.
So, 101 Cookbooks is still flambé free after nearly four years of recipes and updates. I think its time (and a great time of year) to change this. Feel free to shoot me your favorite flambé ideas, experiences, and liquor/flavor/ingredient combinations and I'll try to make something happen in the coming weeks.
Sage, Walnut and Dried Fig Stuffing Recipe
Adapted from More from ACE Bakery by Linda Haynes. HS note: This version uses a slab of herb bread bought at the farmers' market along with freshly shelled walnuts. Linda uses pecans and a sage bread in her version. I used a mix of kadota and black mission dried figs, but whatever you find will taste great. I also used a slightly herb vegetable stock (from an herb bouillon) for another layer of herb infusion.
1 large loaf/slab of herb bread
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
1/2 cup unsweetened apple juice
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup dried figs, finely chopped
1 cup sugared walnuts (see recipe below)
1 tablespoon fresh sage, finely chopped
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup vegetable stock
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut the bread into 1/2-inch cubes. Shoot for 6 to 7 cups of cubed bread. Set aside in a large bowl.
Put the cranberries in a small saucepan with 1/4 cup of the apple juice and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until cranberries start to pop and split. Cook a minute beyond that and drain the cranberries, discarding the cooked apple juice. Add the cranberries to the bread, along with the onion, figs, sugared walnuts, and sage.
In that same small saucepan over medium heat whisk together the remaining (1/4 cup) apple juice, butter, and stock. Toss the bread (don't over mix or it could go to mush) and stuff whatever it is you are going to stuff. Alternatively, bake, covered, in a casserole dish at 375 degrees for 50 minutes.
Makes about 6 cups of stuffing.
Sugared Walnuts
2 egg whites
1/4 natural cane sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
2 cups walnuts, shelled
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Whisk together the egg whites, sugar, and salt until well combined. Fold in the walnuts, stirring until well coated. Place in a sieve and allow to drain for a couple minutes before placing the nuts in a single later on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast for 15 minutes, until the nuts take on a golden hue and the coating has dried out quite a bit and hardened. Remove from oven and cool.
Makes about 2 cups of nuts. Plenty for the stuffing, plus some to snack on.
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Your Comments
It sounds good to me - perfect for a roast chicken. I know that you are not the roast chicken kind of person - which makes me interested in knowing what you would use it to stuff.
Bananas Foster (or bananas flambe) would be my pick for a recipe.
Wondering two things: First is, you don't say what to do with the onion before adding it to the rest of the ingredients, I assume it's diced or something? Also, do you think almonds would work as well as the walnuts? Thanks Heidi, this sounds really interesting flavorwise...
The flambé recipe I've made year after year is an old Julia Child recipe for Liver Paté...
(with onions, cream cheese and cognac, nutmeg, salt & pepper)...
it's relatively simple and delicious. I'm sure it can be updated....
Maybe you can post both savory and sweet flambé recipes...
The stuffing sounds pretty tasty, but to be completely honest I think I'm just going to make a batch of those sugared walnuts to have on hand as a snack! :)
I don't normally like stuffing, but this looks delicious! I really love your site, Heidi, though sadly, I haven't had a chance to try any of your recipes - though just reading them inspires me to try to cook new, different dishes.
As for flambé ideas, my personal dream has always been to serve duck à l'orange flambé with triple sec. I've made a great roast duck and a pseudo-homemade orange sauce before...but sadly the idea to serve it flambé came after I did all that. I've been waiting for just the right occasion to try it again.
Please make my cooking dreams come true!
I just got the Ace Bakery book too, and it looks really good. I think I'm going to have to try the pear ketchup recipe this week.
Love that walnut photo!
-L
I've been looking for a different type of dressing and this looks like a keeper.
Great site, great pictures. Good luck to you.
oh my, how wonderful. i'm going to have to write this one down and make this for thanksgiving dinner. my own stuffing. mmm.. and not tainted with turkey ;)
-h.
"Project Runway" is the BEST!!!...v
"Sugared Walnuts" - my today favorite recipe! Cool! Thanks
Ooh, this recipe is something to look forward to this Christmas season!
Could you post some recommendations about veggie stock? I'm sure it's best to make my own (what kind do you make?) but I'm also very , VERY interested in the buy-at-the-store varieties (e.g. what is this "herb bouillon" stuff?). I have a Veggie potentially visiting for Thanksgiving. The last time this happened, the stuffing was taken care of with a substitution of a bit of water and a lot more butter (in lieu of chicken stock). It tasted fantastic, but had a saturated fat content not to be wished on anyone. I'm thinking of trying a mostly onion-based stock (kind of French onion soup minus the meat stocks), to avoid having overwhelmingly vegetal notes in the stuffing (onion, like chicken stock, seems to be "cleaner" in flavor). Your thoughts would be appreciated!
Wonderful combination! I always favor some kind of pork product in my stuffing (my southern roots at work). I make something very similar for the holidays, but I use a jimmy dean sage sausage that now comes broadly available in most supermarkets. You would have to reduce butter in the above recipe and probably reduce the salt as well.
A friend came by a few months ago with a beautiful filet of sockeye salmon and a bottle of anisette and made a lovely flambe for us. Problem is, what to do with the rest of the anisette.
This stuffing looks fantastic. I'm a big fan of corn-bread stuffing, but this might be just the recipe to tempt me away from that.
As for flambe, I'm a classicist and love Baked Alaska. Nothing beats a lovingly prepared genoise sponge cake serving as the base for a flavoured-alcohol flambed alaska filled with delicious french pot ice cream. For a touch of extra decadence, I use fruit-flavoured dark-chocolate ganache on the cake instead of the traditional jam/preserve.
Mmm...like the sound of those sugared walnuts...great snack around Christmas time. I'm going to pass that one on to my mother, who's busy getting ready for her first Christmas with all the family around her for a few years -- and her first grand-daughter! (Although, we'll keep the nuts away from her!)
wow,what a recipe...but i don't like the cranberries,yuch!but i would consider using something else in place of the cranberries.
Hi Nutellacrepe-- As a vegetarian (and I know you didn't ask me, but I cook quite a lot), I'd recommend either "un-chicken broth" which is thin, clear and simple and chicken-like, only it's vegetarian. If you choose to use a traditional vegetable broth, go for a lighter color, and low sodium. I travel home for the holidays and my mom has substituted veg stock(s) into the stuffing instead of adding more butter, water, etc for years now and it's just as yummy as when she made it with real chicken stock. I think you'll find the flavor is terrific, even when veg, and you can keep it so that there will be no MI's at the table. I wish I had the patience to make my own stock, but it takes a wide variety of vegetables (mostly their cores / peels) to get a tasty one, and it's just easier to buy it in the cardboard snap-top containers. I don't know if you have any sort of Whole Foods, Wegmans, Trader Joe's or other natural foods store near you but you'll find they have the widest variety of veggie stocks. Good luck and happy stuffing!
I am not so fond of walnuts but I'll give this recipe a try.
I'm totally addicted to chestnuts, especially in stuffing - so I think I'm going to try this with those instead of figs. It'll definitely make for a more subtle flavour, so I'll have to figure out something to maybe up the kick a bit. I've always loved the orange rather than apple-based cranberry sauces - but I'll try it both ways :) But I know the perfect local bread - so I'm really looking forward to trying this!
For a dessert flambé, orange or lemon extracts work beautifully. You can just shake it right onto the top out of the bottle and light up with no warming involved. They have so much alcohol that it all burns away and doesn't leave liquid to make your frosting or meringue all soggy. You can also soak crushed sugar cubes in the extract (and some food color, too) and sprinkle them across the top of the dessert. It leaves a fruity, caramelized, crunchy topping after the flames are gone.
Would crepes suzette count as a flambe dish?
I am thinking of a lovely roasted pork loin , my Cuban root, and for dessert Cherry Jubilee over Ben and Jerry "Cherry Garcia"
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