We've enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with our family for years.
Our dear friend Roberta does the bulk of the cooking – turkey and all the
trimmings – and a fine job she does of it too! That one time each year we
indulge in a bit of traditional bread stuffing.
But since going Paleo I've been looking for a substitute for bread-based
turkey stuffing for the times I decide to roast a bird myself.
I knew I wanted a sausage-based stuffing with a taste
similar to the traditional, but I scoured the Internet and came up pretty much
empty – either it involved bread or it was something else entirely. I’ve been
totally unimpressed with non-wheat/gluten free breads, so I decided to wing it
and make my own using cauliflower as a base.
One thing I remember from my mom’s stuffing is that she
always boiled the neck & giblets with onion and celery as a
flavoring/moistening agent, so that’s where I started.
Cauliflower/Sausage Stuffing for Roast Turkey
2 stalks celery, chopped*
¼ sweet yellow onion, chopped
1 turkey neck & giblet package
½ head of cauliflower, trimmed into florets
½ lb pork sausage
1 T Herbs de Provence
1 t rosemary
Boil the celery, onion, neck & giblets in a small pan
with just enough water to cover. Simmer until the meat is falling off the neck.
Strain and pour liquid into a medium size pot, setting aside
the solids.
Add cauliflower florets to liquid and steam until
cauliflower is soft. While steaming, strip meat from the turkey neck and add to
cauliflower along with the onions and celery. When soft, mash like potatoes.
Fry the sausage until brown. If desired, chop up the giblets
and add those too, otherwise nibble on them while you cook, feed them to your
cat, whatever. Once meat is browned, drain off the grease and add the meat to the cauliflower along with the herbs
and mix well. Either use it to stuff the bird or keep warm until ready to
serve: I did the latter.
I'm still getting used to the idiosyncrasies of making gravy with arrowroot instead of wheat flour - it tends to be a little gooey - but it tasted just fine!
*Note: I didn’t actually use two stalks of celery – I grabbed
the whole bunch and chopped a bit of waste off the top, then chopped from the
top, leaves included, until I had about two stalks worth.
