Basil, Sultana and Feta stuffing

Don’t know about you, but I fancy stuffing to fill my own cavity, not some dead birds first. It'd be a sad day to banish stuffing from your menu over Christmas just because you don’t eat meat.


Meat-fee stuffing can be full of a real mix on interesting flavours. My experiments over the years have shown me that as long as you keep the basis of breadcrumbs and some moistness from stock, oil and perhaps lemon you can vary the other ingredients any way you want to fit with the rest of your meal.

This stuffing has: hazelnuts, herbs, apples, feta and sultanas. It was a dish in its own right in the end. Forget the nut-roast bring on the stuffing.



Ingredients:

175g breadcrumbs

60g hazelnuts
200g feta
1 small onion
Half an apple such as empire
2 garlic cloves
Small bunch of basil
Small bunch of thyme
200ml vegetable stock
Juice and zest of a lemon
40g sultanas
100ml of olive oil
Salt and pepper seasoning

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C.
2. Whiz the breadcrumbs with a food processor or hand held blender until they are quite fine. Repeat the same for the Hazelnuts and combine the two in a mixing bowl.
3. Crumble in the feta, tear the basil leaves and shred in the thyme leaves.
4. Peel and finely chop the onion, garlic and apple – add to the breadcrumbs.
5. Roughly chop the sultanas and add to the bowl.
6. Add the juice and zest of the lemon, olive oil and seasoning.
7. Add the boiling water to the stock and combine with all the other ingredients in the bowl.
8. Pat it down into an oven proof dish, that allows it a few cm’s of height, cover in foil and bake in the oven for 30 minutes and a further 10 without the foil.