Gastro Man Wants You To Shake It Up a Little This Thanksgiving!

OK guys. Guys who cook that is. Want to impress your loved ones this Thanksgiving? Want to give them a holiday gift that will stay with them for a few days? If yes is your answer and you're a little tired of gramma's stuffing recipe, it's high time you stuffed your bird with a little Portuguese personality!

We're talking Chorizo baby! The hotter the better.

It takes a little bit of work but the payoff is rewarding as you watch your family and friends wipe the sweat of their brow. Just kidding...it isn't that bad, in fact this a sensibly different twist that will certainly garner admiration from all. So much so that they may still be talking about your stuffing as you quietly exit the dining room to watch some Canadian Classic football on TV.

Gastro Man loves Chorizo! I love it with eggs, in my pasta, in a bun. I have made my own but usually buy it.

For this recipe you will need fresh and cured Chorizo. The cured stuff provides a firm chewy texture and if you find some good stuff, can generally be hotter than fresh. The fresh will plum up and give body to the stuffing end result.

You can get both at either Safeway or Thrifty's but there is some really good blends to be found down at Granville Island and, of course, at several deli's on Commercial and Victoria Drive.

Here is what you will need for a twenty pound bird.....

Gastro Man Kick Butt Stuffing

6 cups dried bread crumbs
4 fresh links of Chorizo
2 cured links of Chorizo (chopped finely)
1 large red onion chopped
3 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
half cup parsley
two teaspoons oregano
half cup coarse chopped sage
2 celery stalks (chopped fine)
1 egg
1 teaspoon coarse black pepper
2Tbsps olive oil.
2 ice cold Stella Artois

Heat the oil in a sauce pan. Add garlic onion and celery and cook to soft and transparent. Add fresh Chorizo to brown but not cook through. (about 4 minutes a side)

Remove sausage from pan and cut in to quarter inch slices.

This is exhausting. Drink one of the Stella immediately.

Pour contents of pan including nasty oily chorizo fat in to a mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients. Stir and mix like a maniac.

Stuff your Bird! Take that you Portuguese flightless fowl!

Stuffing things is also exhausting...drink remaining Stella.

The Turkey will take on an aroma that will have everyone salivating and the finished product is out of this world!

Hawthorne Vineyards VQA makes an exceptional Gewertztraminer that nicely melds the turkey with the slightly more flavourful stuffing.

Enjoy!