Probably every family has a beloved turkey stuffing - and from what I have read, some of those recipes go to the grave with their creators. I am rescuing our family's dressing recipe from that fate. I don't know if anyone outside of my family will ever make this. Readers will see that I have shared some notes re the research that went into recreating this.
Christmas 2016 was the first time I attempted this family classic / tradition. It was always much enjoyed, but for a time it had disappeared from the menu, and was very much missed. It used to be my favourite post-xmas snack - I liked nibbling on it more than leftover turkey. It was made first by my grandmother, then my mother. Once family meals moved to my house, my mother would prepare the stuffing on Xmas Eve, which I would pick up and use next morning to stuff the turkey. Over time, she began to cook it and we warmed it up as a side dish. Then it stopped appearing on the table when it became too complicated for her to make. I really missed it and when Son #1 urged me to give it a try, I finally rose to the challenge. This recipe was not written down anywhere. My mother gave me a rough outline of how she made this, but when pressed for details, she sometimes replied, "I don't remember." So research began with my old cookbooks and then moved to the Internet, looking at English language and Hungarian sites. A liver dressing does not seem to be common in North America. Even on Hungarian sites it often includes mushrooms - and my family never added that. Now that I have made this several times, I am ready to share the recipe.
Getting Ready:
See 2023 Update re bread
I found it can be challenging to find chicken liver, so don't leave that until the very last minute; liver can be frozen.
DO wait until (almost) the last minute to buy the bread. 2023 surprise - we are in a period of “shrinkflation” - vendors charging the same for smaller products. For the first time since I have been making this stuffing, I found that the bread I bought from the usual place was now 450g instead of 620g. Fortunately, the crust was super soft and I did not feel the need to remove much of it. Otherwise, I would have had to run out for another loaf to ensure that I ended up with around 450 g.
I like to let the prepped dressing sit, refrigerated, for a day before baking to let the flavours develop
I bake this in a buttered loaf pan.
Cut up the bread the day before mixing the dressing, or early morning and make later in the day. (See details below.)
Prep ahead - prep and measure the spices and parsley, chop the onions and celery, prep the liver. If you do all this the day before, things go quickly on “mixing” day.
Workflow: 1) The bread is ripped up, dried a bit and then mixed with milk 2) The onion/celery is cooled after cooking and then mixed with beaten eggs and spices and added to the bread 3) the cooked liver and chicken stock are then added
Timing: Three choices 1) Day before (or morning of) prep bread and make this later in the day; refrigerate overnight and bake the next day; or 2) (my pref) prep bread 3 days before; mix stuffing 2 days before; bake stuffing 1 day before, then refrigerate; on serving day, slice and warm. Tip: covering the slices stuffing with lettuce leaves allows it to warm up and stay moist - obviously, remove the wilted leaves before serving. 3) I have now begun to follow steps in #2 except that I make it well ahead of time. After baking, I let the stuffing cool completely, then slice and arrange in a dish, then cover it with plastic wrap and foil and freeze it. Thaw and heat - perfect!
1 loaf bread (see Notes)
1/2 cup milk (and maybe a bit more)
Please - take time to review the lengthy Notes below about bread. Buy the bread the day before mixing the stuffing. With the goal of salvaging as much of the loaf as possible, cut off the hard crunchy bits of the crust. (That’s assuming the crust is dry and crunchy as is often the case with fresh bread. If the crust is super soft you can leave all/most of it on.) It's not a problem if bits of the crust remain. Tear or cut bread Into small bits - between 1/4 - 1/2" - smaller is better than larger! Sometimes, I leave it to dry overnight, covered with a tea towel. This year I prepped the bread early in the morning and spread it out on a tray, covered with a tea towel. It had dried just the right amount a few hours later and I did all the mixing on the same day.
See Notes. Just before following the steps below, drizzle the bread bits with as little milk as necessary to slightly moisten it ( 1/2-1 cup milk - as needed) and squeeze the bread to remove excess milk if you overdo it. If necessary, use a fork to fluff up the bread, making it ready for remaining ingredients. In other words, the bread should not be a solid lump. It may seem odd to sort of dry the bread and then add milk, but milk + bread = a panade = tenderness. (Confession - I once made this and totally forgot the milk step - hmmm it still worked out fine…)
4 TB butter
2 medium onion – chopped fine (about a cup)
1/2 cup celery – ideally leafy centre / hearts, chopped
I “chop” the onions and celery in my food processor - a few pulses are all that’s necessary to get the onion pieces pea-sized.
In a frying pan over medium heat, cook the onions and celery in melted butter until they become soft and the onions become translucent. Take care that the onions do not brown or become caramelized.
Remove onions and celery from the pan and set them aside to cool – use the same pan to brown the liver. If you read ahead you’ll see that you’ll be combining the onion/celery mixture with the eggs, so take care this is not so hot that it cooks the eggs!!
2 TB butter
½ lb (at least 227 g) chicken livers
1/2 cup chicken stock
Do not use less liver. Sometimes the weight on packaged liver includes the weight of liquids. Plus, depending upon the amount of fibres you need to remove, you could end up with less than the 1/2 lb. Better to buy a bit more liver. Pat the liver dry, remove any fibres, and chop a bit.
Melt the butter in the fry pan used in the previous step. Cook the liver on medium heat until it begins to brown, and continue breaking it up a bit while it cooks (using whatever method works for you - I use a potato masher). Cook until medium rare - not overcooked. Remove from heat and add chicken stock. Stir and set aside to cool.
3 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped fine
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
While everything is cooling, you can butter the baking pans and prep this herb/spice mixture.
Beat the eggs with a fork or whisk.
Add all the spices and the parsley to the eggs - this helps ensure that they will be evenly distributed in the dressing.
Assuming it’s sufficiently cooled, you can add the onion/celery mixture to the above as well.
To the prepared bread, add the egg/spice mixture and cooled onion/celery mixture and mix until you can see that every bit of bread has been “kissed” by the above moist mixture. Ideally, use your hands. This might take several minutes.
Add the liver/stock mixture.
Mix very well, giving the bread time to absorb everything. If it seems necessary, you can add some more stock or one more beaten egg.
Place the mixture into buttered loaf pan. This could be baked and served right away.
I usually bake it the day after the mixing. Refrigerating this overnight seems to give the flavours time to develop. (For me, the "next day" is often the day before Xmas - thus minimizing Xmas day demands on the oven).
Bake it at 375 F, covered with foil for 30 minutes; then 15-30 minutes with the foil off. If the stuffing came right out from the fridge, the bake time may take another 5-10 minutes. Though technically almost all of this is cooked before hitting the oven, some sites suggest aiming for an internal temp of 150 F. Go briefly under the broiler if more colour is desired.
On Xmas day I slice this up, cover it with lettuce leaves (to keep it moist) and warm it up in the oven. Naturally, the lettuce leaves wilt - but you toss them out anyhow. They leave the dressing wonderfully moist.
Notes and Tips...
Bread: how much? - the Italian loaf I usually buy is labelled 620 g. I have tried removing all the crust or none at all, and have settled on removing most of the crust - especially the hard, crunchy bits. That means you'll be using less than 620 g of bread - sorry I didn't weigh the post-crust portion, but all should work out in the end as long as you have no less than 450 g of bread.
Bread: what kind? - I am sure my grandmother/mother used either Italian or French bread - I used Italian. I have seen similar family recipes online using other kinds of bread. Lately, I have found a great rye sourdough - may try that one day. Hungarian recipes refer to using "zsemle" - these are large rolls/buns, almost like kaiser rolls, and they tend to use about 4.
Bread: Crust or no crust? I suggest that most of the crust be removed - especially the hard, crunchy bits.
Bread: day old - my mother said she/they used day old, as is the case with some (but not all) similar online recipes.
Bread: To soak or not to soak - whew! Lots of research on this. My mother can't remember. I have seen some recipes that simply use fresh bread, outweighed by many sites that warn against this. Fresh bread, they say, will lead to a gummy mess. The bread has to be dried or "staled", and yet should be a bit wet before being added to the mixture. That hurts the brain, right? This resulted in lots of reading and consults with bloggers who like food science. Soaking bread in (usually) milk is called a "panade". I have used a panade in a meatball recipe - but somehow it made more sense when the meat was the star attraction since a panade sets up some chemistry that keeps the meat tender and moist. In a dressing, the bread is a main ingredient, but apparently, the panade technique helps ensure that the dressing does not turn out dry.
Seasoning - almost every Hungarian site referred to adding "seasonings" which I found out might refer to "poultry seasoning" - which could be different there vs. here. The family recipe includes most of the typical poultry seasoning ingredients, except for sage and marjoram.
Some of my research is reflected in this post - "7 Mistakes to Avoid When Making Stuffing".
About my research - only one of my Hungarian cookbooks (by Karoly Gundel) referred to a dressing with liver - it also contained mushrooms and bacon (and hard-boiled eggs!) A search for Jewish liver stuffing offered up some ideas - there is some overlap between Hungarian and Jewish cuisine.
For KB Recipe Attribution Practices please click here.
<== Questions or Comments about this recipe? Visit the Recipe Q. C. page - looking forward to hearing from you!