Part of cooking a roast turkey is finding a delicious stuffing, for us that’s chestnut stuffing. Chestnuts have an incredible richness that is simply beautiful with roast turkey (and it would work very well in a roll of beef as well). We use some of the chestnut stuffing inside the turkey cavity to flavour the meat and bake the rest of the stuffing separately to serve as a side dish. That way there are two different textures—soft and moist from inside the turkey, and a crunchy side dish.

Be warned, there is a ridiculous amount of butter in this recipe, but the chestnut stuffing tastes so good it’s worth it. And it’s Christmas, so hang the calories.

Ingredients

2 x 425ml tinned chestnuts, drained, rinsed and roughly chopped
2 cups butter
2 onions, finely diced
6 stalks celery, finely diced
1 x 375g packet dried breadcrumbs
1¼ cups fresh herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano—choose the blend that suits your tastes, for us it will be homegrown sage), finely chopped

Method

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in the onion and celery, and cook until soft.

Add in the chestnuts, breadcrumbs and fresh herbs, and combine thoroughly. Set aside until you’re ready to stuff the turkey.

Note: This can be made the day before and refrigerated. Before stuffing the turkey with it, make sure the chestnut stuffing is at room temperature—cold ingredients going into the turkey will slow down the cooking process.

Once the turkey is stuffed, spread the remaining chestnut stuffing in a layer 1½–2cm thick across a shallow baking dish. Avoid pressing the stuffing into the dish, you want rustic chunks of stuffing. Bake in a moderate oven (180°C/350°F) until golden and crunchy, approximately 20–25 minutes.