In various parts of Italy, roasted capon is one of the undisputed main courses on the holiday menu (especially for Thanksgiving and Christmas). Its meat is ideal for making broth, but if you bake it with potatoes, it’s even tastier. One way to make it even tastier is to stuff it with minced meat and spices. Or try your hand at preparing one of the many variations on the traditional recipe for its usual filling.
A sure shot with chestnuts
Meat and chestnuts have always been a winning combination. Why not use them for the capon stuffing, as well? To fill a 4 lb capon, you’ll need: 11 oz of ground pork loin, 7 oz of veal sausage, 1 lb of chestnuts, 4 oz of grated Grana Padano cheese (or Parmigiano Reggiano), 4 oz of stale breadcrumbs, 2 eggs, 1 cup of milk, ½ cup marsala, extra-virgin olive oil, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
First, blanch the chestnuts in plenty of boiling salted water. Then peel and crush them with a fork. In the meantime, soak the breadcrumbs in milk. In a bowl, add the minced pork, the sausage (with the casing removed) and the breadcrumbs (after squeezing them from excess milk). Then add the eggs, cheese, marsala and crushed chestnuts. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste. Mix well. Stuff the capon and close it with kitchen twine. Place it on a roasting pan and drizzle olive oil over the surface. Bake at 390°F (200°C) for 2 hours.
Crispy sweet-and-sour stuffing
One way to make the stuffing crunchy with a sweet-and-sour flavor is to add some nuts and apple mustard to the traditional ingredients. For a 4 lb capon, you’ll need: 5 oz of pitted prunes, 4 oz of shelled nuts, 4 oz of fresh sausage, 3 oz of butter, 2 tablespoons of apple mustard (a specialty mustard from Mantua), a clove of garlic, 1 cup of white wine, sage, rosemary, nutmeg, extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper.
Soften the prunes in white wine for about 10 minutes. Then drain them and chop them with the walnuts, garlic, sage and rosemary. Finely chop the sausage and apple mustard. Combine both spice mixes, add a drizzle of oil and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Mix the ingredients, stuff the capon and stitch it up. Transfer to a roasting pan with chopped butter. Cover with aluminum foil and bake in the oven at 390°F (200°C) for a couple of hours.
With plums and apples
For this sweeter stuffing recipe, you’ll need: 2 golden apples, 11 oz of pitted prunes, 13 oz of sausage, the juice of 2 oranges, 1 cup of dry marsala, ½ liter of broth, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper.
Soak the plums in the marsala and let the chopped apples macerate in the orange juice. After an hour of macerating, chop all ingredients. Mix with the finely chopped sausage. Season with cinnamon, salt, pepper and a drizzle of oil. Mix well and transfer the filling to the capon and stitch it up. In a pan with plenty of hot oil, brown the capon, adding marsala (what you used earlier for the plum marinade) and a couple of tablespoons of warm meat stock. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 390°F (200°C) for about two hours.
