Sausage and chestnut stuffing with homemade croutons

Cube a whole loaf of bread into half-inch cubes, spread evenly over a couple of sheet trays and dry at the oven's lowest setting, around 200F, tossing and rotating occasionally until completely dry. Bread left out overnight will stale instead.

Mix a pound of ground pork with a teaspoon of kosher salt, half a teaspoon each of garlic powder and onion powder and about two tablespoons of finely chopped fresh sage; cover and refrigerate.

Finely chop half a medium onion, two small carrots and two ribs of celery; mince about two tablespoons of fresh sage and chop about a tablespoon of fresh thyme.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in the biggest Dutch oven and brown the sausage, mashing it to bite-sized pieces; it can still be a little pink in the middle.

Fish the sausage out with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Saute the mirepoix in the rendered pork fat with two tablespoons of butter for five or six minutes until it softens and picks up colour, warming four cups of stock in a separate saucepan.

Add one tablespoon fresh thyme, two tablespoons fresh sage and one crushed clove of garlic and saute about 30 seconds until fragrant.

Deglaze the pot with a little of the stock, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom.

Return the sausage to the pot and add chopped roasted chestnuts if using; mix until evenly distributed.

Add the croutons with about half of the remaining warm stock - just enough to saturate the bread, not all at once - and mix.

Season generously with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, adding more stock or croutons until the consistency is right; cover and keep warm, reheating on the stove or crisping in the oven before serving.