Nigella Lawson - Gingerbread Stuffing and Redder Than Red Cranberry Sauce

Nov. 9: Food expert Nigella Lawson prepares holiday side dishes with flair, from her new cookbook, "Feast", with the "Today" show's Ann Curry. 041109

Gingerbread Stuffing
Serves 8-10

1 pound (3 medium) onions, peeled
2 eating apples (11 ounces), peeled and cored
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon oil
1-1/2 pounds bacon
Zest of 2 clementines or 1 orange
1-pound loaf of good store-bought gingerbread, crumbled makes 5 cups
2 eggs, beaten
Approximately 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Finely chop the onions and apples, using a food processor or by hand. Heat the butter and oil in a large wide saucepan and fry both until soft, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Now very finely chop the bacon in the processor, and add this to the softened onion and apple mixture. Cook everything, stirring frequently, for about 5 more minutes and then add the clementine or orange zest. If youre going to make the allspice gravy youll need the juice from this fruit for that.

Take the pan off the heat and let it cool a little before mixing in the gingerbread crumbs. You can let this get properly cold now if you want and put it aside. Just before cooking the stuffing, add the beaten eggs and pepper, mix, and use it to stuff the main cavity of your turkey, or cook all of it (or whats left after stuffing your bird) in a buttered baking dish. Bake it in a hot oven with your turkey for about the last 45 minutes. If the stuffings going into a very full oven — which it no doubt is as part of a festive meal — it might take longer to cook; alone, 35 minutes should do it.

Let the cooked stuffing sit in its terrine for a good 10 minutes before turning it out and slicing it.
Redder Than Red Cranberry Sauce
Serves 8-10

12-ounce package cranberries
1 cup superfine sugar
1/4 cup cherry brandy
1/3 cup water

What can I tell you? Put everything in a pan, bring to a boil and let bubble away for about 15 minutes until you have cranberry sauce. The one thing you should bear in mind, though, is that the pectin-rich nature of the fruit means that it solidifies briskly as it cools, so take the pan off the heat to stop it cooking and reducing when you still think its much too liquid. Once the berries have burst, which should be after about 10 miutes, it should be ready, but you will anyway have to remove a teaspoonful to taste whether it needs more sugar (if you find it too sweet, which is unlikely, just spritz in some lemon) so take two out to check the consistency of the second, cooled, teaspoon.

If you cook this in advance it will chunk up a lot, so just thrash it through with a fork before serving.

Excerpted from Feast: Food to Celebrate Life, by Nigella Lawson. Copyright © by Nigella Lawson. Published by Hyperion Books. All rights reserved. No part if this excerpt can be used without permission of the publisher.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Feast: Food to Celebrate Life
• Gingerbread Stuffing
• nigella lawson
• holidays
• side dishes
• food expert
• today show
• cooking
• ann curry

[futuristfood]

paper plates?

[Ponyboy1]

Awww- she interrupts herself to say "it's nice to see youuu" to Al. She's so sweet.

[donglabong]

I love the way Nigella always uses her 'products' wherever she is, love me love my egg shaped mixing bowls, mezzaluna and measuring cups!

[PeterStorm81]

shes refering to The Holiday. just before december. so it can be only one :) Christmas is only 2 days the holiday covers 2 or more weeks.

[mdndahoodnawaz]

when she says holiday......... do you think shes actually referring to christmas but to be politically correct she has to say holiday?