Vegetarian Stuffing

Christmas. Ham. Twelve hours. The ritual. Eleven people at the table this year — all three children, their partners, both grandchildren. James brought egusi soup and suya and a new dish — moi moi, a steamed bean pudding that is the Nigerian version of Betty's soup beans: beans transformed through heat and time into something nourishing and complete. I ate moi moi and thought about how every culture has a bean dish that is its foundation, that says we are a people who take a simple thing and make it sustain us, and the making is the same across oceans and continents, only the spices change.

Earl Thomas gave me a present he picked himself — a bag of coffee beans from the grocery store. He said it's for your chili, PawPaw, because he remembers, because I told him once that I put coffee in chili and he remembered, and the remembering of a three-year-old boy about a recipe detail his grandfather told him once is the proof that the teaching is working. The words go in. The words stay. The words will come out someday as food.

Clay and Sarah sat together on the couch after dinner, her head on his shoulder, and Connie took a picture without them knowing and showed it to me later and I looked at it for a long time. Two people on a couch at Christmas. Nothing remarkable except that everything about it is remarkable because the man on the couch almost didn't make it to any couch, and the woman on the couch chose to sit beside him knowing where he'd been, and the choosing is love and the couch is Christmas and the picture is everything.

James brought moi moi and I thought about how every culture takes something plain — beans, bread, grain — and through patience and heat turns it into the thing that holds people together at the table. Stuffing is ours. It’s what I make when the table needs something that isn’t the centerpiece but somehow holds everything in place, the way a couch holds two people, the way a three-year-old holds a detail about coffee and chili. This vegetarian stuffing has been beside the ham for years, and on a day when James’s moi moi reminded me that the making is the point, it felt right to share the recipe that does the same thing on our side of the ocean.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes | Servings: 10

Ingredients

1 loaf (about 14 oz) day-old crusty bread, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large yellow onion, diced
4 stalks celery, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves (or 3/4 teaspoon dried)
1 tablespoon fresh sage, finely chopped (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
2 1/2 cups good-quality vegetable broth
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Dry the bread. Spread bread cubes in a single layer on two rimmed baking sheets. Leave out overnight, or toast in a 300°F oven for 20–25 minutes until completely dried out but not browned. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.
Preheat oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Butter a 9x13-inch baking dish and set aside.
Cook the vegetables. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 8 minutes. Add garlic, thyme, sage, and rosemary and cook 1 minute more until fragrant. Season with salt and pepper.
Combine. Pour the vegetable mixture over the dried bread cubes. Add parsley and toss gently to distribute evenly.
Add liquid. Whisk the eggs into the vegetable broth and pour over the bread mixture. Stir gently until the bread has absorbed the liquid. The mixture should be moist but not soupy — add broth a few tablespoons at a time if it seems dry.
Bake covered. Transfer stuffing to the prepared baking dish and spread evenly. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
Bake uncovered. Remove foil and bake an additional 15 minutes until the top is golden and crisp. Let rest 5 minutes before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Vegetarian Stuffing — The Making Is the Same Across Oceans