Newsletter # 38 – Dealing with Christmas leftovers

I have often wondered how the mammoth amount of food we collectively purchase close to Christmas can possibly be consumed – I mean supermarkets are only closed for one day. Over purchasing at Christmas time is common and this will naturally lead to the question of what to do with leftovers.

A key date for me when planning for Christmas, is Melbourne Cup Tuesday. By this day hopefully we can get some clarification of where family celebrations will happen and who will be there. For the lucky few, you may actually snare your preferred location and have all your family in attendance. For most of us, as we get older there is probably some degree of compromise and Boxing Day or Christmas Eve becomes the focus.

With where and who sorted, it’s time to look at what you may be serving. Are you going traditional or perhaps you have been inspired to tackle a list of recipes you have hoarded for this very occasion.  Regardless, for many people, the festive season can mean a few days or more of what seems an endless round of eating or preparing food to be eaten.

Since it is now after Christmas, you hopefully have successfully dealt with the problem, or your purchasing was spot-on, and it never was. In case you’re like the rest of us, here are few ideas on how to use up leftovers, with minimum work.

Priority

Firstly, identify fresh ingredients that will suffer if you attempt to freeze them for later use. Cooked meats, fresh seafood, prepared salads, roast vegetables, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit and previously frozen (and thawed) foods fall into this category. These will need to be consumed quickly or reworked where possible and even cooked meats and seafood can be successfully adapted into simple recipes that can be frozen.

Most roast meats can be turned into ‘pulled’ meats in your slow cooker and if you check your pantry, you may even have a good range of suitable ingredients on hand. Brown sugar, vinegar, barbeque sauce, garlic, chilli, mustard and Worcestershire sauce are handy, while you could include leftover gravy and even suitable leftover condiments such as apple sauce or cranberry sauce. You will however need a little liquid stock to replace natural juices. The finished dish is then suitable for freezing.

In the unlikely event that you have leftover seafood, consider pasta sauce – either creamy or tomato based, but try and avoid cooking the seafood a second time. Simply make and chill the sauce before folding the chilled cooked seafood into the sauce. For best outcomes discard shells from seafood and avoid skin and bones from cooked fish. Freeze or heat and serve.

Cold roast vegetables such as potato, sweet potato, pumpkin, onion and squash are very suitable for a ‘Spanish style’ omelette. Other vegetables you should consider include capsicum and tomatoes but greens you should avoid include Brussels sprouts, cabbage and lettuce. Allow three eggs for one omelette and perhaps a little cheese such as tasty cheddar or Jarlsberg. I have found that leftover mascarpone worked well in the egg mix.

Leftover prepared salads really should be eaten quickly and if you have too much, give some for your guests to take home, unless you have a barbeque on within a couple of days.  If possible, avoid dressing any of your salads which contain salad leaves. Next day Caesar Salad is considered a disaster; best thrown away.

Ham

The main cured meat at Christmas is ham and when purchased ‘on the bone’ it will often give you a surplus amount of meat, for even a half leg may be 6kg in weight, which is a lot of ham. If the thought of yet another ham sandwich is a little daunting, consider dicing the ham and using it in a quiche which then could be chilled and frozen for use down the track. Don’t forget to retain the bone, ham skin and bits and pieces for use in soup in the cooler months.

Chef’s Salad – a variation on a compound salad

Salads which contain multiple ingredients, bound together with a dressing of some sorts are called compound salads. Examples include potato salad and pasta salad. While lettuce is not considered an ingredient, a compound salad can be served on salad greens.

Having worked for both the Hilton and Hyatt hotel chains, I have naturally come into contact with American influenced menus. One of the earliest salad recipes I can remember preparing, apart from a tossed salad, was the Chef’s Salad, a salad which was popularised by Louis Diat, of Vichyssoise Soup fame, during his 41-year stint at New York’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel. However, this simple compound salad recipe is not attributed to Chef Diat but rather to one of two chefs who worked at two different hotels also in New York in the 1920’s.

It was unusual at the time because of the inclusion of chilled cooked meat, including ox tongue. Even in the 1970’s when I was apprenticed, most compound salads served did not include meat; and offal in a salad was not very enticing. In Australia cold meats were served with basically a side salad.

So, the Chef’s Salad was adapted for Australian tastes, and the ox tongue was eventually consigned to history, leaving us with a recipe that makes perfect use of Christmas leftovers. A modern trend emphasises appearance by making the individual ingredients stand out, with the dressing – in this case ‘thousand Island dressing’ served separately or at the last minute.

Chef’s salad

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Servings: 2 serves

Course: Salad

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

  

• cos lettuce leaves or mixed leaves washed and chilled
• 120 g lean leg ham cut in strips
• 120 g cooked turkey breast cut in strips
• 120 g cheese a mix of Swiss and cheddar, cut in strips
• 5 cherry tomatoes washed and halved
• 1 small Lebanese cucumber cut in strips
• 3 hardboiled egg cut in half
• 100 ml thousand island dressing
• 1 spring onion cut in fine strips
• chopped parsley
• cracked pepper

Method

 

1. Chilled plates, lay the lettuce
   
2. Arrange the meat, cheese and cucumber strips in a pattern of your choice
3. Garnish with the cherry tomatoes, half eggs, spring onions and parsley
   
4. Serve thousand island dressing separately

Thousand Island dressing

If you have had cooked prawns at Christmas time, there is a possibility that you may have leftover Cocktail Sauce which can form the basis of Thousand Island dressing. Additions to the dressing are finely chopped and folded in, and your choice of these additions can be varied, dependent on what you have available but aim for compatibility and colour variation to give a speckled appearance.

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Course: Sauces

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

  

• 100 ml Kewpie mayonnaise
• 50 ml tomato sauce or ketchup
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp horseradish cream
• 50 ml cream
• 5 ml lemon juice
• A few drops Worcestershire sauce
• A few drops of Tabasco

Additions for Thousand Island dressing:

• 1 tbsp pickle or gherkin finely chopped
• 1 tbsp yellow capsicum finely chopped
• 1 tbsp parsley finely chopped
• 1 tbsp hardboiled egg (white and yolk) finely chopped or sieved
• 1 tbsp chives finely chopped
• 1 tbsp black olives pitted and finely chopped
• ½ tbsp white onion finely chopped

Method

 

Method for sauce:

1. Mix all ingredients together
   
2. Cover and refrigerate

Method for additions:

1. Stir into cocktail sauce
2. Cover and refrigerate
   

Comments:

• If you look at the image of the ingredients, I have not followed my own recipe, but I substituted ingredients with what I had in the fridge with only gherkin and parsley used from my recipe. For colour and compatibility I have used chopped tomato and just cooked pumpkin. Spring onion replaced chives while I used a little French dressing to thin the cocktail sauce and a little crushed chilli for a little punch. I also held back the eggs and didn’t have any cream, for the cocktail sauce could have been a little paler.
• In short, I used what I had.