How to stuff a chicken

Last night I had dinner at the Jacobsons - roast chicken. They were out of bread and dried herbs but there is more than one way to stuff a chicken! As a child the only poultry we ate was duck or pheasant that the men (Dad and Uncle Matt) shot in the shooting season.

It made me realise that some people don’t have a good recipe for stuffing or horror! buy a prestuffed chicken full of some sort of horrible slime. I use the recipe that is basically my grandmother’s one - and it is good - see the page out of my mother’s cookbook below.

Instructions

Whizz two or three slices of bread - last night it was actually a ciabatta bread roll - into rough bread crumbs. Add about 50 g of butter - three or four tablespoons - a finely chopped onion and a tablespoon of dried mixed herbs and that’s it. However, if you have herbs in the garden a handful of thyme and parsley lifts it to another level. Stuff the chicken and then either put a bit of tinfoil in the gap or pin together with toothpicks.

By the way we always serve apple sauce with our chicken as that is what we always had with our wild duck and also put bacon over the breast about 20 minutes before the chicken is cooked as pheasant breast is fairly dry...

Above is a photo that Nanny sent to Matt, her son, who was a POW for 4 years. He was an avid shooter but this card must have been returned to her as I don’t think he would have carried it with him all that time. He was taken on Crete and he said that the German parachutists dropped out of the sky and he and all his mates were duck shooters. It did haunt him...