A Story of Leftovers

One man's trash is another man's treasure. In a way this popular saying kind of reminds me of leftovers. Most people seem to have a dubious and reluctant relationship towards them. Quite often whatever remains of your meal is simply discarded or just boringly reheated in the microwave to make a less tasty and drier version of the same meal. Even the word 'leftovers' doesn't sound too appetising. But then again leftovers are frequently used in restaurants in order to save costs and reduce waste and make delicious meals (don't worry, they're not actually using the leftovers from your plate). And there are also some people at home who make wonderful and diverse meals with the remains of their previous dinner. But why isn't that more common? Is it because the microwave has made using leftovers a no-brainer? Or is it because we have been taught all our lives that we don't have to finish our meals and then simply throw them away? Might it be the fact that less people are confident and creative cooks these days, and that the concept of necessity isn't really a stimulating impulse for cooking?

Who knows. I on the other hand love leftovers as a creative ingredient for making exceptional dishes, and instead of trying to figure out why people don't like leftovers I will try to convince you that you should love them! A good starting point for this I think is Christmas or the whole festive season when everybody buys lots of great food and a lot of that food becomes leftovers. Leftover turkey sandwich for example is a leftover meal that most people love, and that's because there are all these ingredients and toppings available to make a really nice sandwich. And maybe people will still make turkey soup, but that's as far as it will get most of the time. But there is so much more potential, especially with nice joints of meat. So lets have a look at our New Year's Day feast and how many meals that one shoulder of lamb provided for two greedy foodies and how sensationally amazing leftovers can be. 

Day 1) Here's the original feast. A jerk-style slow roasted shoulder of lamb with spiced couscous, a gravy made with the roasting juices and some wine, and a selection of roasted pumpkin, sweet potato, celery, topped with dried figs and apricots. Yum! It was incredibly rich, and we didn't actually eat that much for lunch and then for supper we just cut off slices of cold lamb and picked at the veg and the couscous and basically had a bit of a food orgy. 

Day 2) The following day I decided to pick the rest of the meat of the bone and I was really surprised to see how much meat was on it. I even left a bit for future use, because I knew I was going to use the bones as well. Anywho, I took the meat, the gravy and some leftover mulled wine and put everything in a pot on low heat. The rest of the celery I cut into strips and added them as well, the figs and apricots too and the pumpkin and sweet potato I squished into a mash and mixed it into the now thick, dark and rich stew. The pumpkin and sweet potato really added a lot of body and sweetness, and this is really something I would never do if I would make a stew from scratch, because I'm a bit lazy like everybody. But having all these amazing leftovers after such a feast means that you have an arsenal of unique ingredients to play with and make the most delicious dishes that are bursting with flavour and that would otherwise take loads of preparation and time to make. But because you're stretching that preparation over a couple of meals and days the workload becomes less and allows you to add flavour on flavour and make the tastiest of dishes!

Day 3) This one I am particularly proud of and it really deserves a few pictures. The next dish we made was a pie, and I truly think without making it sound like a cliché, that this was perhaps the best pie I've ever had! We used some leftover mash-potato and some spare cheese that was left in the fridge to make a pie base, quite unusual but such a good idea! There wasn't that much meat left in the stew because we had two servings of it the day before, and so we decided to fry some onions, peppers and mushrooms to add them into the mixture. Good meat pies need vegetables! 

The savoury sweetness of the onions, the roast pepper flavour and that mushroomy goodness along with some leftover cream truly transported this dish to the next level. Flavour upon flavour, it was such an explosion of taste, even the memory of it still seems to linger on my tongue. And what else is missing to make this dish complete? Yes, some nice puff pastry, crunchy buttery goodness topped with some lovely (slightly tacky) love motives to give that old-fashioned pie sensation. And here it is, the best pie of all times, in our humble opinion. 

So that's it folks, the magic of using leftovers in its full glory! A dish like this would have never happened from scratch in our house, even though we're keen cooks. And it's not only the time and prep that is of importance here, it's the unusual collection and composition of the ingredients which are truly unique in a sense. I will perhaps never again eat a pie this good! Or perhaps I'll make an even better one some day, but probably never again this exact same one. And that is special and makes a dish worth remembering. And this specialness in a way comes from necessity and the need I felt to make and eat my leftovers because I didn't want them to land in the bin. Need and necessity are a powerful drive and although they're not that common anymore when it comes to our modern ways of preparing and consuming food, I always feel a challenge when I have some amazing leftovers and that challenge inspires me to make the next dish that much better than the previous one. So I hope this story of leftovers will have made you think about the humble beginnings a masterpiece of a dish can have and how we all can create such masterpieces at home, that are unique and bursting with flavour and excitement!

Day 4) And what about those bones you might ask? I did mention them after all, and yes after all that feasting and decadence and food moments that changed our lives we wanted something light and simple again to clean our tastebuds. An Irish stew is the answer - no rich gravies, roasted veg, cream, puff pastry, nothing like that. Carrot, Onion, Spud, Celeriac, some water, salt and pepper and a few bones. Let it cook for a while, remove the bones, mash it a bit, and there's your dish. Clean flavours, simple tastes.