PRESERVED LEMON, WILD SAGE AND ALMOND STUFFING
Although this is a stuffing, it also makes a really good vegetarian nut roast if you leave out the butter and the chicken liver. So, it gives your veggie friends something substantial and delicious to enjoy as well as a winning accessory to your roast. It’s also a more interesting textural experience if you bake it in a baking tin, so you get a crispy topping. Then again, the wild sage and pungent citrus of the preserved lemons infused into a pork joint is irresistible.
- 1 large onion, diced
- 6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 4 sticks of celery, finely sliced
- 50g olive oil
- 30g butter (optional)
- 100g breadcrumbs , 50/50 fine /coarse
- 2 whole Arabica preserved Lemons, finely sliced and chopped
- 80g Arabica Salted Almonds, roughly chopped
- Small bunch of fresh parsley, roughly chopped
- 1/2 jar Arabica Wild Sage, finely sliced and chopped
- 1 chicken liver, finely chopped (optional if you’re stuffing a bird that came with the giblets or you have some to hand)
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 3 tablespoons water
- Salt and black pepper
Serves 4 for nut loaf , 6 for stuffing
We’re fortunate to know some of the bread bakers of borough market quite well. So, we grab the unsold sourdough up at the end of each market day. Slice them up and leave them to dry out. We break them up by hand and store them in a sealed plastic container. We then blend them in a processor as finely or as coarsely as we need them. For our stuffing we like my crumbs to range from quite coarse to the size of chickpeas to create a more varied texture.
Melt the butter and olive oil in a frying pan over a low heat. Add the onions and celery and sweat them down for a few moments until the onions become sweet and translucent. Take the sage and rub it between your hands over the pan so that it breaks up, picking out any big pieces of stem. Add the garlic and cook gently for a further 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool.
Meanwhile, place the breadcrumbs, finely sliced preserved lemons, roughly chopped salted almonds, optional chicken liver and the fresh parsley in a large mixing bowl. Add the cooled ingredients from the frying pan and mix well. Beat two eggs in a cup add 3 tablespoons of water, lightly season with salt and add a more generous pinch or two of coarsely ground black pepper. Add the beaten egg mixture into the mixing bowl and mix thoroughly by hand. Don’t be too firm or you’ll break up the bigger pieces and end up with a big piece of mush.
Use this mixture to stuff a loin of pork or if serving with poultry or as a nut roast, pile the mixture into an oven proof dish and bake for 30 minutes in a moderate oven, 180 Degrees / gas mark 4, until nicely brown and crisp on top.