Traditional Thanksgiving Turkey #recipe

This is our traditional way of preparing the thanksgiving bird.

Stuffing for a smallish turkey:

• one loaf white bread
• one pound cheap fatty pork sausage
• four or five stalks of celery
• one or two onions
• salt, pepper, thyme, sage to taste
• two eggs

Cook the sausage, crumbled up in small bits. Chop and add the onions and celery. Cook to sweat that. It should be limp but not browned. Add about 1 teaspoon dried sage and 2 teaspoons dried thyme.
It should look something like this:

I would taste a small amount, and possibly add pepper (< 1 teaspoon) and maybe salt (there is usually plenty in the sausage). I typically use “lite” salt that has potassium chloride because I like the extra potassium in my diet.

While it’s cooking clean the bird, remembering to remove the neck and gizzards (use them to make gravy).

Salt both the outside and inside of the bird. (The red dot is from a thermometer plug that’s common in the USA.) Find a pan which will fit it.

Coarsely cut the bread into cubes and add to the mixture. Add the eggs to it and mix.

I will typically deglaze the pan by putting about 1/2 cup of water in it and reducing that to about half the volume. It removes the brown, tasty residue from the pan and converts it into a brown, tasty liquid that gets added to the stuffing.

Stuff the bird. Cover in foil and bake at a moderate heat (300F, 150C) until done. I usually remove the foil about an hour before serving to let it color up.