Deep fried dressing

[Oak Smoke]

It’s a tradition at our house that we have the old fashioned cornbread dressing every Thanksgiving. This year we deep fried one of turkeys. When we brought it out of the fryer one of my sons had a pan of dressing that hadn’t gone in the oven yet. In no time both sons were making dressing balls a little bigger than a hush puppy and frying them. They were really good. I always make three pans of dressing because I like to freeze some of it for when I get hungry for dressing. So we ended up with two pans of traditional dressing and one of fried dressing balls. We are all in agreement that we will do that again next year. All afternoon you would see someone walk out of the kitchen with a couple of dressing balls in hand. Give it a try, we liked it.

[Michael_in_TX]

It's like leveled-up hush puppies!

[LA Pork Butt]

If you fry it they will come! LOL

[captainlee]

How long did you fry them?

[Oak Smoke]

Just until they were golden brown. In the 350 degree oil it didn’t take long. I don’t have an exact time. All the ingredients were precooked so we were just trying to create some crunch and browning. I was amazed that they soaked up almost no oil. I guess the starting temp and the fact that I make a very moist dressing helped there.

[captainlee]

Wish I had thought of that!!!

[RonB]

I'm guessing you had a ball - or three.

[MBMorgan]

Did you add any batter to bind the dressing ... or did they just naturally hold together?

[Oak Smoke]

It bound just fine. My dressing is a mixture of corn bread, biscuits, onion, celery, butter, chicken stock and sage. I like it to be a fairly high hydration mix so that it doesn’t dry out when we bake it. It was just an accident that it was great for frying.

[MBMorgan]

Thanks! Added to my never-ending to-do list ...

[Huskee]

Can you write up both recipes as full recipes for us??

[Oak Smoke]

Yes. I’ll get that done right away.

[Huskee]

Oak Smoke Great, thanks!

[Oak Smoke]

Huskee is there a recipe template on the site?

[Huskee]

Yes, click the Recipes Only channel (also in the main menu bar, above, 3rd from right) , then the first "Please Use This Recipe Template To Post Your Recipe" post at the top.

[Michael_in_TX]

(I originally thought this was frying something like ranch dressing......I was envisioning something like fried egg drop soup lol.)

[Oak Smoke]

The dressing recipe has been posted in a separate post.

[Spinaker]

Oh wow, this is a great idea. I will have to try this! Thanks for the inspiration

[jfmorris]

Thanks for the idea! I may try this with my electric deep fryer next year, just for kicks. Or as a side for the 17 pound turkey currently in the deep freeze.

[TripleB]

I'm all in. Making a note to try deep fried stuffing hushpuppies.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

In England you often get a small ice cream scoop size ball of air fried stuffing with a Sunday roast, but some places deep fry them.

Oddly, most of our British friends wanted Stove Top whenever we cooked I always liked their stuffing ball thingies

[Allon]

It took me a minute but I realized that dressing = stuffing here. Right?

[jfmorris]

Oak Smoke I think the recipes can be similar but have also heard of lots of odd stuff in stuffing as well. My concerns are the same as Meathead's on the free side - filling that cavity with stuffing prevents hot air from entering the cavity, and slows down cooking. And by the time the stuffing is food safe and 160F, the breast meat and everything else will be WAY overcooked.

Also, the cavity is pretty limited in size (not much stuffing to share), and no browning will occur like in a pan.

[Oak Smoke]

jfmorris +1

[Allon]

We make our stuffing both in and outside the bird so there's enough to go around.

What do you call that?
Ones stuffing and ones dressing?
Druffing?
How about Stressing!!