It’s Boxing Day and you’re faced with an excess of ham, turkey and potatoes? Never fear ...
The Herculean effort required to get through Christmas — all that presentwrapping, feast-making, relationshipwrangling, cleaning (the prep and the aftermath) — it’s little wonder we need a lie-down when it’s all over. Thank heavens for Boxing Day. This is one time of year when you won’t get in trouble for standing in front of the fridge, pulling out anything you want to eat. There’s no longer any “looking food”, now it’s all “eating food”. Everything that needed to make a stylish entrance on the dinner table has already done so, and now there are just lovely leftovers.
Dinner is as simple as slicing up cold ham or turkey, throwing on a pot of potatoes to boil and tossing together a green salad. Leftover turkey makes fabulous sandwiches, diced up and mixed with enough good mayo to coat, a few toasted slivered almonds or pine nuts, some chopped basil, tarragon or parsley, salt and pepper and a little lemon juice to give it a fresh tang. The crucial element is the freshest soft-crumbed bread. If you aren’t using bread right away, put it in the freezer as soon as you get home. Whenever you make a sandwich, take out the slices you want and return the rest to the freezer. Butter the slices while still frozen (the butter stops the sandwiches from going soggy), top generously with your filling mixture and cap with another slice of buttered bread. If you want to prepare ahead of time, wet a paper towel, wring dry and place over the top and sides of your sandwich stack to stop them drying out and curling up like frisbees. Chill if not serving within an hour.
My friend Lina, who hails from Rarotonga, makes a fabulous Pasifika version of these by adding a small can of well-drained crushed pineapple to the filling mixture. Coronation turkey sandwiches are another delicious tangent — simply add a good dollop of fruity chutney into your mayo turkey mixture and 1-2 tsp curry powder to taste (mix the curry powder and chutney into the mayo and get it tasting the way you like before adding the turkey and herbs, etc).
If you’re taking sandwiches to a picnic, put the filling into a container and keep it chilled, ready to assemble the sandwiches when you want them. You’ll never taste fresher.
Leftover slaw from Christmas day is useful for Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches. Add mint or coriander into the slaw along with some grated carrot and a squeeze of lemon or lime. Mix mayonnaise with a pinch of fivespice powder and a glug of sweet chilli sauce and toss leftover diced turkey meat through this. Layer the slaw and turkey mixture into a split baguette that has a little of the crumb pulled out so it’s not so bready.
When you’re ready to turn your leftovers into something new and different, here are some simple ideas to transform them.
6 EVERYTHING ITALIAN
When the chips are down, humans eat ... chips. Or, at least, carbs. Hospitality operators read the room and many of Auckland’s recent openings have been built on a foundation of pasta and pizza dough (take a bow Spiga and, also, East St Hall for a tasty post-lockdown pivot). Italian was the flavour of the year. One of my favourite experiences was at Pici, the tiny eatery that scored a food trend double — its citrus cheesecake with olive oil and salt was like lying on a fresh-cut lawn under a lemon tree on a very hot day. And if you still haven’t managed to score a booking at Ada, keep trying. I don’t think they could serve a bad meal if they tried.
7MOCK MEAT
There’s nothing new about the rise and rise of meat-free meals (see: artichokes). But in November, the big guns landed. California-based Impossible Foods launched its beef into restaurants in Auckland, Mount Maunganui and Christchurch. The plantbased “meat”, which many consumers claim cooks, looks and tastes like the real thing, is being used in burgers, chawarma, lasagne and kofte at the likes of Burger Burger, Fatimas and Waiheke Island’s Vino Vino. (If pork belly and seafood are more your faux-thing, head to Ponsonby’s Khu Khu for a mock meat meal that is so visually meaty, you may want to leave bona fide vegetarians at home.)