Each November the phrase āstuffing vs. dressingā starts popping off on Google. Itās a tiresome and pedantic debate but one that also regularly revives a storyāapocryphal, as far as I can tellāsuggesting that the term ādressingā was taken up by sexually repressed Victorians because the thought of āstuffingā raised the specter of shtupping. (Yet āforcemeatā survived in Victorian parlance? Sure, okay.)
Prior to the 1850s, this tale goes, people were more than happy to stuff their fowl with vegetables and milk-soaked bread and whatever, while ādressingā meant preparing the bird for cookingāādrawingā or scooping out unwanted bits, trussing it, and the like. Allegedly, the neutered Victorian usage took hold, at least below the Mason-Dixon, and ādressingā eventually became synonymous with the carby thing you serve with the turkey. Meanwhile, perverse Yankees stuck with āstuffing.ā
Isa Chandra Moskowitz, a vegan cookbook author and writer, wisely sidesteps the stuffing vs. dressing question entirely, calling her animal-free version of the Thanksgiving classic a āsavory herb bread pudding.ā In her cookbook I Can Cook Vegan, she likens it to a certain well-known brand of boxed instant stuffing mix, thanks to its heavy reliance on Thanksgivingās holy hexad of sage, rosemary, thyme, celery, parsley, and onion. And sheās not wrong.
In many respects,this is the same stuffing I made with my mother each Thanksgiving when I was growing up. Instead of the fresh bread that Moskowitz calls for, we used the bags of fossilized bread cubes that show up this time of year in supermarkets across America. Instead of dicing the aromatics, my mom would feed them through a hand-cranked meat grinderāa technique she learned from her grandmother, from whom she inherited the grinderāresulting in a chunky vegetable paste that melts into the croutons. Beyond a nice little bicep workout, the benefits of this method still elude me, but tradition is tradition.
Where we really differ with Moskowitz is on fat. As a vegan she naturally avoids the copious amounts of butter that would end up in our stuffing, opting for olive oil instead. To be clear, most stuffing recipes arenāt all that hard to veganize, as long they donāt call for sausage or oysters, but lacking the richness of butter as well, vegan stuffing can be at a serious disadvantage in the umami department. So when I made Moskowitzās recipe recently, I thought of using a vegan butter in place of the olive oil, to more closely replicate the stuffing of my childhood. But then I remembered that I donāt particularly like vegan butter, as most brands Iāve tried taste rancid or chalky, or theyāre just uncanny simulacra that never successfully trick my brain into thinking Iām eating the real thing.
My solution? Infusion.
In place of the tasty, moreish milk proteins in butter, I use olive oil to extract as much flavor as possible from herbs and other aromatics. Following the same principles outlined by former Epi food editor Katherine Sacks, I start with a pot of cold olive oilāa cup is plenty, but two cups will leave you with lots of leftovers for drizzling on roasted vegetables, toasted bread, etc. To that I add many sprigs of fresh thyme, sage, and rosemary. (Dried herbs also work well, but because their flavor is more concentrated, a little goes quite a long way.) If Iām feeling like it, Iāll throw in a couple cloves of crushed garlic or a minced shallot to add some allium backbone too.
I cook the oil on low heat for five to 10 minutes, always mindful of the herbs and garlic beginning to brown and then burn, which will ruin the whole enterprise by turning it inedibly bitter. Once the pot starts to smell delicious, I turn off the heat and leave the herbs to further infuse as the oil cools. After it reaches room temperature, I strain out the solids and keep the infused oil in the fridge (to avoid any foodborne illness risk, however unlikely).
As a butter replacement in vegan stuffing (or dressing, or savory bread pudding) the infused oil harmonizes with the fresh herbs and vegetables, adding an ineffable layer of flavor thatās nevertheless solidly thereāhighlighting the nuances of the other ingredients so that youāre not just eating hot, wet bread. And infused oil is highly adaptable to whatever recipe youāre using, too; if your favorite stuffing is built on other flavors, feel free to swap in chile flakes, fennel seeds, citrus zest, or anything else that makes sense.
I have no dog in the stuffing vs. dressing fight (although I will call BS on the Victorian vulgarity thing). Name the carb you serve with your Thanksgiving mainābe it a bird or a stuffed squash or whateverāanything you want. I only ask that you make it taste good, lest you have a true Thanksgiving brawl on your hands.
