Oyster Meat Dressing - Stuffing Recipe
For this recipe, don’t worry so much about exact measurements. Once everything comes together, it will taste delicious! Every one has their own preference of levels of seasonings, butter, sausage, filler ingredients, etc. Think of this recipe as more of a guide - Feel free to customize it to your liking. The main star of the show here is using Intershell’s Shucked Oyster Meat to bring out the New England costal flavors to your Thanksgiving dinner table.
Serving size: 16
Total time: 1 hr 5 min
Ingredients
1 lb Intershell’s shucked oyster meat - defrosted. Save the juice.
8-10 cups of small pieces of bread. It is preferred to use stale bread, any that you have on hand in your house already. You can use “Stuffing Mix” from the grocery store if you have that as well. If you have bread at home but it is not stale, break it up into smaller pieces and let it sit out in the open overnight or bake in the oven to toast.
1 cup of margarine or butter (a generous amount)
1 - 2 Lb sausage meat. If you have sausage links, extract the meat and discard the skin.
1 large onion - chopped
3-4 cups of chopped celery
2-3 tbsp total of sage, rosemary, & thyme - fresh if possible. Dry seasonings will also work.
2 tbsp chopped parsley
Salt & Pepper to taste
Optional: Chopped mushrooms
Optional: Clam Juice stock
Cooking Directions
Pre-heat the oven to 350 Degrees F. Grease your desired baking dish.
Grab a large skillet. Melt the butter on medium heat. Sweat the onions & celery until soft. Add in your mushrooms if you are including them in your recipe.
Add the sausage meat and the oyster meat with the onions and celery. Add your rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper. Make sure both are 90% cooked at least.
Add the stale bread (or stuffing mix) and combine everything together. Even if the pan is overflowing with bread, that is ok! The bread will shrink. Add the oyster juice. As the bread starts to shrink, feel free to add more to balance out the other ingredients if you need to.
If the stuffing ends up being a little to dry, add an additional 1/2 cup to 1 cup of water, or clam juice stock. to bring back the moister. Don’t add too much liquid as you do not want the stuffing mixture to be mushy.
Once the bread starts to settle with the other ingredients, let the stuffing cook for another 5-10 minutes to allow the flavors to really settle in, stir occasionally to ensure everything is thoroughly combined.
Right before it is done cooking, add your chopped parsley. Transfer stuffing mix into your greased baking dish (or you can stuff it in your turkey or Jumbo Lobster!)
Bake in the preheated oven until the top is toasted and a knife inserted comes out clean. About 45 minutes.