
This Christmas, we panicked and bought a turkey that came with a layer of readymade stuffing smeared on top under a lattice of bacon. I regret this purchase after spotting what looked like a perfectly good unadorned turkey for two in the Co-op this morning but never mind – this year’s Christmas dinner is all about the side dishes.
As I am convinced the readymade stuffing will be awful, I have made extra stuffing to serve as a side dish.
I had a packet of 12 chipolatas for pigs-in-blankets but, as there’s only two of us for Christmas dinner, I decided to make six piggies and use the other six mini-bangers as the basis for a stuffing. Any breadcrumbs should be fine in this recipe but I like the texture panko breadcrumbs offer – plus I had plenty left over from my Christmas pudding recipe.
The diced pepper adds a touch of colour – it’s a nice change from the usual sage and onion stuffing and, as a bonus, this recipe does not involve traipsing around the shops during a supply chain crisis trying to find chestnuts.
Colourful pepper stuffing
Ingredients
6 chipolata sausages
150g diced bacon (Asda does this really well at a great price)
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1 small red, green, yellow or orange pepper, finely diced
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon dried basil
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C.
- Slice each chipolata and remove the sausage meat from inside. Discard the skins.
- In a bowl, mix the chipolata meat, diced bacon, breadcrumbs and diced pepper with a fork, squishing the ingredients together.
- Add the olive oil and beaten egg. Mix well with a fork.
- Add the basil, salt and pepper and mix well again. It should be a wet, squishy blend.
- Roll into balls – I like golf ball-sized balls but you can be more delicate. Alternatively, this can be stuffed inside the turkey or cooked in a tray so you can cut it away in slices.
- Bake for 25 minutes – keep a close eye on it as it can get very dark very quickly, especially if you have an oven like mine that runs too hot.