The stuffing which never stuffed

This being a reminded that when I was small, sage and onion stuffing was generally stuffed into the abdominal and thoracic cavities of a chicken or turkey, and the stuffing was cooked along with the fowl. The stuffing's flavour being held to be enhanced by taking in juices from the fowl around. This theory was put aside in favour of a hygiene theory about the importance of thorough cooking of factory fowl, much helped if the hot air of the oven had direct access to the interior. 

We have never been into stuffing involving chestnuts or forcemeat of any sort. We have never been into stuffing one sort of stuffing into one end and another sort in the other.

Which leaves us with sage and onion stuffing which we always cook in a separate dish, placed on the shelf below that of the fowl, for the second half of its cooking. Snapped above after the mixing of the stuffing proper, including the dried sage from Turkey mentioned on the last occasion (reference 1), now near three months ago. Time is definitely speeding up as I get older.

Snapped again after installation of protective, dry cured streaky bacon. My culinary duties thereby being completed, I was able to set off on the Jubilee Way circuit.

Promising start with a No.24, a No.30 and a No.40 all being spotted in Epsom, with none of these numbers being common. But things went downhill after that, with nothing else between 24 and 40. Furthermore, the sun came and went, the cold breeze came and went. Not that deterred the Sunday footballers on either King George's field (Jubilee Way) or King Edward's field (Hook Road): they were out in force at both places. Probably in contact too.

Chicken and it attendant stuffing ready not long after my return. Taken with brown rice, chou pointu and a spot of roast parsnip - this last being visible in the white dish behind. Also taken with our last bottle of Racines, last noticed at reference 2. One of those orgo whites which almost sparkle, which start a clear, pale yellow but which have darkened and gone a little cloudy by the time you have finished the bottle. Good stuff, but it does not stand well, certainly not until the next day.

When fresh, the stuffing was very crumbly, not set in a lump at all. Not sure about this, but we still did about three quarters of it at the first sitting. And the residual quarter had set by the time that we polished it off on day two.

We rounded off proceedings with some date slice and stewed apples. Taken separately, in no particular order.

Wound down by turning the pages of our book about the Chan States of what is now north eastern Myanmar, what was the Union of Burma at the time of independence in 1948. A free association of states, of which Burma proper was the largest, occupying the lowlands to either side of the Irrawaddy. Presumably rich agricultural land. Free association no more, with the army well entrenched and very much in charge, elections and Aung San Suu Kyi notwithstanding.

This was followed by a brick walk and that was followed by our regular game of Scrabble, a low scoring game which I lost by a margin of 30 or 40 points. So no wee nip of Calvados to celebrate.

Day 2, we took the chicken cold, accompanied by some stewed celery with onion and tomato. Not unlike that served on Christmas Eve and notice at reference 3, but rather more onion and rather less tomato on the present occasion.

Day 3, we took the chicken in pie form, that is to say a sort of chicken stew topped with mashed potato and baked off. The stew was flavoured up with some more of the dry cured streaky, which made it a little salty. It was also a little wetter than I intended - always tricky to judge in a topped dish of this so: rather fire, forget and hope for the best. But I carp. It was pretty good.

The stew is snapped above, just before tipping it into the pie dish, just visible top right, where it will be topped out.

Day 4, we had lentil, leek and potato soup made from the carcass. This time I thought to blanche the bacon flavouring in water before adding it to the soup, which was better.

The remnant of the soup went on my breakfast trencher on the morning of day 5. All quite economical really.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-sage-of-turkey.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-wine-for-friday.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/12/part-i.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/chicken-pie.html. An early pie.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/chicken-little.html. A recent pie.