Ellen's Pecan Stuffing
Grandma’s
kitchen is a sepia-toned memory of Hoosier cabinets and a glass double
boiler, of apple
pies fresh out of the oven and fudge cooling in the
pan, of the clatter of pint
jars and the trill of
birdsong through an open window. Grandma's
kitchen is spacious and
sunlit, with the original oaken cabinets of the depression era affixed with
glass knobs and hung with tea towels hand-embroidered in the motif of her choice.
Grandma’s kitchen is spotlessly clean but welcoming, with a vast
porcelain sink, a dish cloth and a metal pad she refers to as a chore boy, a
straw broom and a dustpan standing sentinel in the corner. Grandma’s
Kitchen is rich with the blooming smells of roasting turkey, simmering jam, cakes baking, percolating coffee. Grandma’s
kitchen is truly the hub of the home, where good food, the making of
it and the sharing of it and the sharing of the making of it, meet to make
meltingly lovely memories. During this month of remembrance, I devote a column to
each of the powerful matriarchal figures from my life, as I honor the profound
effect each of these women had on me by recalling their very different kitchens,
and by sharing a blue ribbon recipe that was the signature of
each kitchen and the woman who inhabited it.
First things first: Ellen would not have been particularly pleased to be identified as anyone’s grandmother. She had a child of her own and many of us as acolytes, but no actual grandchildren, and she was vain enough in the way of a lady of her time and place to take any inference about a lady’s provenance as an insult. She was city and soul, with all the grit and glamour that goes with those, and if sometimes there were difficult contradictions in her personality, she came by them honestly and rode through them majestically.
I’ve written about Ellen before, and there is no single individual who more means Thanksgiving to me than she does. She hosted the event for years, and every year as it rolls around, the thoughts of all of us who were lucky enough to be there turn to that crowded, busy kitchen in Harlem.
The aromas of Thanksgiving greeted you from the vestibule of what had once been a grand building on a grand block. It was still clean and gorgeous, but the grandeur of the Harlem Renaissance had receded and the upcoming demon of gentrification had yet to surface. There were more bodegas than clubs in the neighborhood, but there was not yet one chain business to be found above 110 Street. Apartments in Mama Diva’s building were spacious and had been inhabited by the same folks for decades. Mama knew them all, and they all traipsed in for Thanksgiving dinner, often followed by a home tour throughout the building. To a bunch of art school kids used to the cramped quarters of our then-affordable neighborhoods like the Village, Park Slope, the Lower East Side, those urban homes seemed vast and the inhabitants of them among the luckiest people in New York.
Certainly anyone there that day was lucky, for Ellen’s Thanksgiving kitchen was a cornucopia not just by the bounty of it but by the pastiche. Aside from turkey (often, turkeys), there was barbeque, a saddle of salmon, roast beef. There were mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and mashed turnips and creamed onions and long-simmered green beans. There were, of course, Ellen’s world-famous greens. And there were two or three pans of stuffing – wild rice, cornbread, even sausage and liver. My favorite was Ellen’s simple bread stuffing, flavorful with celery and pecans, which stayed soft on the inside while developing a nice crunchy top. Here, in honor of all of those Thanksgivings in Harlem, is Ellen’s recipe for pecan stuffing. When you serve it at your Thanksgiving table, try to be as gracious as Ellen was in response to the compliments you will receive, but remember to recognize the cook who gifted the world with this recipe just as she gifted the world with her presence.
Ellen’s Pecan Stuffing
You can use your own dried bread to make an equivalent amount of bread crumbs, but bagged bread stuffing was good enough for Ellen and for any of us who ate this recipe, so that is what is included here.
1 14 ounce bag bread stuffing
4 large ribs celery
1 medium Spanish onion
1 egg
4 tablespoons butter, plus additional for the pan
2 cups chicken- or turkey stock
1 cup ground pecans
½ cup dried currants
¼ cup brandy
2 tablespoons dried rubbed sage
½ tablespoon dried thyme
2 teaspoons dried ground bay leaf
Freshly ground black pepper
First things first: Ellen would not have been particularly pleased to be identified as anyone’s grandmother. She had a child of her own and many of us as acolytes, but no actual grandchildren, and she was vain enough in the way of a lady of her time and place to take any inference about a lady’s provenance as an insult. She was city and soul, with all the grit and glamour that goes with those, and if sometimes there were difficult contradictions in her personality, she came by them honestly and rode through them majestically.
I’ve written about Ellen before, and there is no single individual who more means Thanksgiving to me than she does. She hosted the event for years, and every year as it rolls around, the thoughts of all of us who were lucky enough to be there turn to that crowded, busy kitchen in Harlem.
The aromas of Thanksgiving greeted you from the vestibule of what had once been a grand building on a grand block. It was still clean and gorgeous, but the grandeur of the Harlem Renaissance had receded and the upcoming demon of gentrification had yet to surface. There were more bodegas than clubs in the neighborhood, but there was not yet one chain business to be found above 110 Street. Apartments in Mama Diva’s building were spacious and had been inhabited by the same folks for decades. Mama knew them all, and they all traipsed in for Thanksgiving dinner, often followed by a home tour throughout the building. To a bunch of art school kids used to the cramped quarters of our then-affordable neighborhoods like the Village, Park Slope, the Lower East Side, those urban homes seemed vast and the inhabitants of them among the luckiest people in New York.
Certainly anyone there that day was lucky, for Ellen’s Thanksgiving kitchen was a cornucopia not just by the bounty of it but by the pastiche. Aside from turkey (often, turkeys), there was barbeque, a saddle of salmon, roast beef. There were mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and mashed turnips and creamed onions and long-simmered green beans. There were, of course, Ellen’s world-famous greens. And there were two or three pans of stuffing – wild rice, cornbread, even sausage and liver. My favorite was Ellen’s simple bread stuffing, flavorful with celery and pecans, which stayed soft on the inside while developing a nice crunchy top. Here, in honor of all of those Thanksgivings in Harlem, is Ellen’s recipe for pecan stuffing. When you serve it at your Thanksgiving table, try to be as gracious as Ellen was in response to the compliments you will receive, but remember to recognize the cook who gifted the world with this recipe just as she gifted the world with her presence.
Ellen’s Pecan Stuffing
You can use your own dried bread to make an equivalent amount of bread crumbs, but bagged bread stuffing was good enough for Ellen and for any of us who ate this recipe, so that is what is included here.
1 14 ounce bag bread stuffing
4 large ribs celery
1 medium Spanish onion
1 egg
4 tablespoons butter, plus additional for the pan
2 cups chicken- or turkey stock
1 cup ground pecans
½ cup dried currants
¼ cup brandy
2 tablespoons dried rubbed sage
½ tablespoon dried thyme
2 teaspoons dried ground bay leaf
Freshly ground black pepper
- Butter a 9 x 9 square baking pan.
- Measure the brandy into a small bowl. Add the dried currants to the brandy and swirl the ingredients together until the currants are submerged.
- Melt the butter in the microwave or in a small pan over low heat and set aside to cool.
- Open the bag of bread stuffing and pour the contents into a large mixing bowl. Measure the sage, thyme, bay leaf and sever grindings of fresh black pepper into the bowl. Use your hands to mix the dry ingredients together.
- Rinse the celery and align the four ribs on a clean cutting board devoted to vegetables. Safely use a sharp knife to cut away and discard the calloused tops of the ribs and the pure white bottoms of the ribs.
- Carefully use the knife to slice each rib into several thin sections lengthwise, including the leafy outcroppings at the tops of the ribs. Slice across the lengthwise sections to form small dice. Scrape the diced celery into the bowl containing the herbed bread mixture. Use your hands to mix the ingredients together.
- Carefully use the knife to remove and discard the stem and cap ends of the onion. Peel the onion. Slice the peeled onion in half crosswise so that it forms two halves. Slice across the halves to form half-moons. Slice across the half moons to form dice. Measure one cup of diced onion and add that to the bowl containing the herbed bread mixture. Use your hands to mix the ingredients together.
- Measure the pecans into the bowl containing the bread mixture. Use your hands to mix the ingredients together.
- Measure the stock into a large mixing bowl. Break the egg into the stock and use a whisk to incorporate the egg throughout the stock.
- Use one hand to hold the bowl/pan containing the melted butter over the bowl containing the stock-egg mixture. Tilt the bowl/pan over the bowl so that the cooled melted butter streams into the bowl. Use your other hand to constantly whisk the mixture as the butter goes into the bowl.
- Pour the stock/egg/butter mixture into the bowl containing the bread/celery/onion/pecan mixture. Use a heavy spoon to mix the ingredients very thoroughly. The stuffing should appear slightly wet with all of the ingredients evenly distributed.
- Use a silicon spatula to add the brandied currants to the stuffing. Use the spatula to get every bit of the liquid into the bowl. Use a heavy spoon to mix all of the ingredients very thoroughly. The stuffing should appear slightly wet with all of the ingredients evenly distributed.
- Transfer the stuffing to the baking pan. Cover the baking pan with a length of aluminum foil.
- Transfer the baking pan to the oven, which should already be in use. Bake the stuffing at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes.
- After 40 minutes, carefully remove the foil. Continue baking the stuffing until the top is nicely golden, approximately 10 minutes.
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