Recipe: Bread Stuffing for Roast Chicken

When I was little, we had somewhat of a standard menu for Christmas and Easter and on those special days. We would have a nice Stuffed Roast Chicken with a lovely bread stuffing loaded with giblets and veggies soaking all that delicious chicken stock and drippings. Along with that there’d be two Goan pork dishes – pork sorpotel and pork vindaloo with Portuguese-Indian roots and maybe even some lovely East Indian (beef) potato chops. No, no….East Indians hail from the western coast of India. It’s a long and confusing story which has nothing to do with geography. Let’s not get into my ancestry for now 🙈🙃😅.

I made this today for the very first time just for myself. The rest of my family here does not eat offals so I don’t see myself making this again for every long time. I understand offals aren’t even sold at many places anymore and it is somewhat of an acquired taste. I like chicken heart and gizzard. But, not many people do. So, if you’re trying giblets for the first time, maybe try a small quantity first. I wouldn’t want you to waste your food/money. Or you could just skip the giblets and add bacon or any other meat that you like. Here’s what I used:

INGREDIENTS:

• 300gms chicken gizzard or a mix of giblets (liver, heart, gizzard)
• 3 tbsp oil/ghee/butter
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1.5 tsp ginger-garlic paste or freshly pounded/chopped ginger and garlic
• 2 green chillies, chopped (reduce/omit if you don’t like extra spicy)
• 1 large tomato, chopped
• 2 tsp garam masala powder
• 1/2tsp pepper powder
• 3 tbsp chopped carrots
• 2 tbsp green peas, boiled
• 1 potato, cubed and fried
• 4-5 slices of bread
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp corriander leaves to garnish
• salt to taste

Method:

• Boil the cleaned giblets with salt and a very little water (around 1 cup) in a pressure cooker for about 5minutes after the whistle or 3 whistles. Remember cooking time will differ depending on the quality of meat and size/type of cooker too.
• Once the meat is cool enough to handle, chop into small cubes.
• Fry potato cubes and keep aside.
• Boil green peas and keep aside.
• In a kadhai/pan, sauté onions, chillies and ginger garlic in this sequence.
• Add the chopped tomatoes and cook.
• Then add the powdered spices.
• Add the carrots and cook for a while.
• Add the giblets along with its stock and give it a good stir. Make sure it is not too watery because we don’t want to make the bread soggy, just moist.
• Add the bread cubes and make sure it is coated nicely with all the masala and flavours.
• Add the boiled peas and fried potato cubes.
• Squeeze a lemon over it all. Keep in mind lemons in India are very tiny as compared to those available in Western countries. So adjust accordingly.
• Make sure your dish is dried out.
• Add chopped corriander/cilantro leaves. (You won’t see any corriander leaves in my pictures because I forgot to add them until I was done with clicking pictures)

Note:

• If you serve this immediately, it may be a little soggy for a while. Refrigerate, reheat and serve after a few hours. It improves in texture drastically.
• Many people like to either deep fry the bread or sauté them in butter first. But I don’t see the need to do that. It does taste lovely with the extra fat though.😉
• I really enjoy spicy food. Even for an Indian, I’m high on spice. So please adjust accordingly.🤭🌶🥵
• This is a great way to use up the end slices of bread. Nothing needs to be wasted.🤑🍞🥖
• This can be eaten as a side or on it’s own as well.
• If you choose to use this as a stuffing, insert it into the cavity of a cleaned bird (chicken/turkey) and stitch the cavity shut. If you have a rotisserie, that is a great function or you could just grill the bird with this stuffing. The juices from the bird will ooze out and the stuffing will absorb much of it making it even more yum.
• If you’re stuffing a broiler chicken(approximately 1.2kg), you will not be able to fit much stuffing into the bird. Don’t overstuff the bird. You can serve the remaining stuffing on the platter around/beneath the roast chicken. It looks lovely that way. That is what my mum always did.

I hope you enjoy cooking and eating/serving this dish.

-RUELHA 
www.ruelha.com 
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