John Torode's apple stuffing recipe

A decadent apple stuffing with tangy green Granny Smiths, sweet parsnip and pork sausage meat.

With nine ingredients, this is a little more complex than the average stuffing recipe, but it’s worth the extra effort. Rather than breadcrumbs it uses starchy vegetables - potatoes and parsnips - to add bulk, for a deep, robust flavour, cut through with sharp green apple. Along with the apple, the herb sage is the star of the show. Sage has a long medicinal history, thought at different times to ward off everything from evil spirits to infertility, and from plague to toothache. However, in this apple stuffing it simply wards off blandly flavoured poultry. 

Ingredients

• 2 large potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 parsnips, peeled and chopped
• 50g butter
• 2 granny smith apples, peeled and chopped
• 1 handful mixed chopped sage and parsley
• 50g fresh breadcrumbs
• 100g pork sausage meat
• 1 egg

Method

1. Boil the potatoes, onions and parsnips until soft, then drain. Melt the butter in a pan then add the veg and fry for 1 minute. Season really well, adding lots of pepper.
2. Stir in the apples and leave to cool.
3. Mix in the sage and parsley, breadcrumbs, sausage meat and the egg and season generously. Stuff your turkey or chicken and cook according to their recipe timings, or cook separately in a baking dish.

Top tips for making John Torode’s apple stuffing

‘For crispy yet moist-in-the-middle stuffing, don’t cook it inside the turkey – make it separately,’ says John.

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