Rice Stuffing

[momothree]

Greetings! I was wondering if someone would happen to have a really good rice or wild rice stuffing recipe for the Christmas turkey? I did find a couple on the internet that sound pretty good, but, this is our first gluten-free Christmas, and I don't want to disappoint the in-laws with an untested recipe. Anybody have a good one to share?? Thanks in advance.

[Guhlia]

Tiffany (Tarnalberry) posted that she had one... Perhaps you could PM her?

[jmengert]

I used this one for Thanksgiving. It had a very nice flavor, but it is sweet, with the apples in it. But, I liked it.

Good luck with it!

APPLE RICE STUFFING

Simply in Season

by Mary Beth Lind, Cathleen Hockman-Wert

A nice side dish with roast chicken or pork chops.

Serves 6

• 1 cup / 500 ml brown rice

• 2 1/3 cups / 575 ml apple juice

Cook together until tender, about 40 minutes. Set aside.

• 1 -2 tablespoons butter

• 1/2 large onion (diced)

• 1 stalk celery (diced)

Melt butter in a large frypan. Saute onion and celery until soft.

• 2 large unpeeled apples (diced)

• 1/2 cup / 125 ml walnuts or other nuts (chopped)

• 1/4 cup / 60 ml brown sugar

• 1 tablespoon dried herbs of choice: thyme, basil, oregano

• 1/2 teaspoon dried summer savory

• salt and pepper to taste

Add and mix well. Stuff in poultry or place in casserole dish, cover, and bake at 350F / 180C for 45-55 minutes.

[tarnalberry]

Open Original Shared Link that I use, though this year I used a bunch of chanterrelles and black forest mushrooms as well, and it was *quite* tasty.

Open Original Shared Link that includes arborio for a creamier stuffing.

[momothree]

Thanks guys! These all sound great--just what I was looking for. However, can I actually stuff my bird with them? I can't imagine roasting a turkey without stuffing it first. If so, at what point would I do so? After the stuffing is already cooked, or before it is cooked (letting it cook with the turkey)? Any thoughts?

[tarnalberry]

Thanks guys! These all sound great--just what I was looking for. However, can I actually stuff my bird with them? I can't imagine roasting a turkey without stuffing it first. If so, at what point would I do so? After the stuffing is already cooked, or before it is cooked (letting it cook with the turkey)? Any thoughts?

Nope, you don't stuff the turkey. Not only is it safer (reason #1), but you won't get the same texture out of the rice stuffing if you don't stir it (to help bring out the starches) (reason #2). Stuffing the turkey is passe! It increases the risk of food poisoning (reason #1 again), not to mention it causes you to overcook your turkey because the filled in center cavity has to get up to 170F, overcooking the breasts, which shouldn't get any farther over 160F than they have to (or you get dry, tough turkey) (reason #3). Instead, you can fill the turkey cavity with large chunks of onion, carrot, and celery. Someone here also suggested sticking large chunks of apple in there, which also sounds quite tasty.

(Reason #4 not to stuff with rice - the rice will ... triple, quadruple?... grow a lot in size while it cooks, but needs a lot of extra moisture in it to do so, and the turkey cavity can't hold it all while it cooks. When you make rice, the rice is well below the waterline, and you need a pot without holes to hold the water that the rice will eventually absorb - as it cooks. The turkey has too many holes! )

(BTW, another tip for keeping your turkey moist, which I do *every* year, and am excessively anal retentive on - make a very large sheet of alumnium foil (by fan folding together two or three sheets, the long way), and Open Original Shared Link. It keeps the moisture in, and you'll never have a dry turkey. It cooks faster this way, though, so I would absolutely leave a Open Original Shared Link in the breast meat and take it out when it gets to 157F, and then let it sit, still in the foil, 162F, allowing the leg meat (which will cook a touch faster) to get to its required 170F. Then slit open the foil at the bottom to collect the juice for making gravy while someone carves up the turkey! )

Edit: you'll have to cut and paste that link to amazon yourself. any time I add it, the converter to html automagically adds a space before the .com so the link won't work and sets the target to blank. Attempting to go back and change that manually doesn't work at all.