Thank you

81. Daft Punk - "Around the World" (Virgin France S.A., 1996)



As we give thanks for many things, including French robots, here's the stuffing I made for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner we had at my homie Sam's house on Sunday. Recipe stolen pretty much wholesale from November's Bon Appetit except for a few tweaks.

Ingredients:
- 2 loaves good Italian bread
- 1 pound each Hot Italian Sausage and Sweet Italian Sausage
- 5 tablespoons butter
- 2 large Spanish onions
- 4 celery stalks
- 4 Granny Smith Apples
- around 2 1/2 cups chicken broth
- 3 large eggs

The first part of this is by far the most annoying but at least you'll have it out of the way. Preheat an oven to 350 and take the crust off of the bread, cutting the rest of it into 1/2 inch cubes. When you've completed this surprisingly Herculean task, spread the bread on one or two baking sheets and put it in the oven to toast for like 15 minutes, or some of the pieces begin to get golden brown. When it's done, put the bread into a large bowl.

While the bread is toasting, chop the onions and celery into relatively small and, much more importantly, relatively equal pieces. Also peel and chop the apples. Put your largest skillet over medium-high heat and throw in the sausage (feel free to throw in some extra hot sausage if your grocer sells it in 1.5 pound bundles). Cook the sausage, breaking it up into small pieces with your spatula, until it all looks cooked through, then transfer it to the bowl of bread, making sure to leave the drippings in the pan. It might look like the sausage to bread ration is out of control, but it'll turn out ok, I promise.

Next, sautee the onions and celery in the sausage renderings until the onion is soft and just beginning to turn golden. Then, pour the contents of the skillet into the bread/sausage mixture, put the skillet back on the heat, and add two tablespoons of butter. Now throw in the apples, and sautee them until they're tender. God, cooked apples are delicious. When those are done, pour them into the bowl, and melt two more tablespoons of butter over low heat. The recipe said to sautee some fresh sage in the butter for 30 seconds, but I didn't have any, so I just used the butter. Feel free to add any herbs you feel appropriate, but either way, throw that butter into the bowl as well. Add the chicken stock and three gently beaten eggs as well.

Finally, butter a 15x10x2 glass dish (or, if you're like me and/or are transporting it anyways, a similarly sized, disposable aluminum roasting pan), spread the mixture evenly into it, and throw it into a 350 degree oven for around 50 minutes. It's delicious.