page_title: Stuffing
section_title: Cavities
hierarchical_section_title: Stuffing / Cavities
caption_attribution_description: English: Stuffed Tomatoes
context_page_description: Stuffing, filling, or dressing is an edible mixture, normally consisting primarily of small cut-up pieces of bread or a similar starch and served as a side dish or used to fill a cavity in another food item while cooking. Many foods may be stuffed, including eggs, poultry, seafood, mammals, and vegetables, but chickens and turkey are the most common. Stuffing serves the dual purpose of helping to keep the meat moist while also adding to the mix of flavours of both the stuffing and the thing it is stuffed in.
  Poultry stuffing often consists of dried breadcrumbs, onion, celery, salt, pepper, and other spices and herbs, a common herb being sage. Giblets are often used. Additions in the United Kingdom include dried fruits and nuts, and chestnuts.
context_section_description: In addition to stuffing the body cavity of animals, including birds, fish, and mammals, various cuts of meat may be stuffed after they have been deboned or a pouch has been cut into them. Recipes include stuffed chicken legs, stuffed pork chops, stuffed breast of veal, as well as the traditional holiday stuffed turkey or goose.
  Many types of vegetables are also suitable for stuffing, after their seeds or flesh has been removed. Tomatoes, capsicums (sweet or hot peppers), vegetable marrows (e.g., zucchini) may be prepared in this way. Cabbages and similar vegetables can also be stuffed or wrapped around a filling. They are usually blanched first, in order to make their leaves more pliable. Then, the interior may be replaced by stuffing, or small amounts of stuffing may be inserted between the individual leaves.
  It is sometimes claimed that ancient Roman and medieval cooks stuffed animals with other animals. An anonymous Andalusian cookbook from the 13th century includes a recipe for a ram stuffed with small birds. A similar recipe for a camel stuffed with sheep stuffed with bustards stuffed with carp stuffed with eggs is mentioned in T.C. Boyle's book Water Music.
  In the United States and eastern Canada, multi-bird dishes are sometimes served on special occasions. See gooducken and turducken.
caption: Stuffed tomatoes
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