Leek and Pecan Stuffing

With Jane Ward

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that Americans like to do by the book.  Turkey, potatoes, stuffing.  Something orange, something green, something cranberry.  Throw in a few creamed onions, a pumpkin pie, and a pecan pie too.  There’s comfort in tradition, and also in knowing that if you looked in your neighbors’ windows at mealtime, they would be eating exactly what you are.  Tradition is the tether that anchors us to the past and to each other.

I too like the parameters of the Thanksgiving dinner: a bird, a starch, a vegetable, a pie.  But for me, the menu is an outline waiting to be filled in with my interpretation of traditions.  Still, no matter how I like to shake up the menu year after year, family members insist on keeping one thing constant: a simple bread stuffing.  Year after year, I give that to them.  It’s delicious, everyone likes it, but sometimes – even with stuffing – I feel like straying from the usual. 

Then, in November 2007, I found a really great recipe for stuffing in the newspaper, one adapted from Chef Ana Sortun of Oleana in Cambridge, and I have made it for many holiday dinners ever since.  It is a family-pleasing simple bread stuffing, but elevated to the slightly exotic through Sortun’s Arabic-Mediterranean way with spices.  I have further adapted the recipe from what I found in the newspaper, but I think my results stay faithful to the original.  If it seems like a lot of ingredients, note that most of the spices are used to infuse the broth; there’s really not a lot of work involved beyond that.

Ingredients

4 cups chicken stock
6 whole black peppercorns
4 whole allspice berries
1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds
2 bay leaves
6 cloves garlic, slightly smashed
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 medium leeks, white and pale green parts only, sliced in ½ inch rings and rinsed well
1 loaf of French bread (about 1 pound), bottom crust removed, bread cut into 1 inch cubes
1 ½ teaspoon Hungarian sweet paprika, not hot or smoked
1/4 cup grape seed oil
1 ½ cup pecans, lightly toasted and broken in pieces

Instructions

1. Butter a 9×13-inch baking dish or similar-sized oval baker.  
2. In a large saucepan, heat the stock with the peppercorns, allspice, coriander seeds, bay leaves, and garlic. Bring to a boil and simmer on medium-low heat for 10 minutes.  Remove from the heat and set aside for 30 minutes to infuse the broth.  Strain the broth though a sieve into a bowl.
3. While broth is infusing, I like to dry out the bread cubes in a low heat oven, say around 200 degrees for 30-60 minutes.  This is not a necessary step.  Fresh bread will yield a more puffy or souffleed stuffing; dried, crunchy bread a more toothsome one.  Do whatever appeals to your taste.  If toasting the bread, set it aside to cool for a few minutes before proceeding with the recipe.
4. Set the oven at 350 degrees.
5. In a medium skillet, melt the butter.  Add the leeks and cook, stirring often, for about 6 minutes or until tender without being browned.
6. Transfer the bread cubes to a large mixing bowl and add the leek to this.  Add also the pecans, paprika, grape seed oil, infused chicken stock, and salt and pepper to taste.  If using toasted bread, let sit in the liquid for up to 30 min. before baking, occasionally submerging top cubes into liquid.
7. Turn the stuffing into the prepared dish and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until golden brown on top.  

Serve immediately.

Recipe courtesy of Jane Ward, author and blogger at Food & Fiction, 2011.

Jane is the author of HUNGER (Forge, 2001) and THE MOSAIC ARTIST, and is currently at work on her third novel, THE WELCOME HOME.  A former baker and caterer, Jane hosts a new video blog for an internet recipe resource, and regularly contributes articles to the online regional food magazine, Local In Season. Jane also blogs weekly about food, and is writing a cookbook/memoir entitled TATTOOED WITH FOOD based on the blog entries.  From Food For Thought column: "Jane shows how ridiculously easy it is to make a loaf of ciabatta bread with a gutsy crackling crust that tastes like it was baked in a Tuscan panetteria. She teaches that the holes in ciabatta are specifically engineered to hold roasted peppers, pesto, gooey melted cheese, as it is the bread of bruschettas and picnic sandwiches. That purposely definitive crust holds everything inside, like a perfectly designed suitcase for foods, more than a sandwich."