Nigel Slater’s recipes for festive leftovers: soup and panettone custard | Food stuff

This is the fridge’s very best hour. A bowl of cranberry sauce comprehensive to the brim shards of cold roast goose, turkey probably some chilly roast potatoes, craggy and golden, and, pleasure of joys, a saucer of chilly pigs-in-blankets. There is bread sauce in a gravy boat, a piece of chilly salmon, brandy butter and even a jug of Marsala-laced gravy. Treats over and above measure.

There is nothing at all, simply just nothing, I like undertaking in the kitchen more than picking at leftovers. All those bowls with saucers for lids, keeping the buried treasure risk-free until finally we are completely ready to consume. A prepared-manufactured breakfast, a midnight deal with, bounty to decide at for the quiet times that observe the feast.

There are no regulations. (Although I should really alert you to sniff anything 1st.) If you want to include a dollop of cranberry sauce to a fry-up of cold roast potatoes and sprouts, go for it. Also bread sauce as a dip for crisp-fried turkey skin or the past of the nut roast crumbled into a pilaf.

A fry-up does seem to be the most straightforward remedy to the conundrums at present residing in the fridge. The deliciousness boosts if there is any type of gravy or roasting juices. (That jelly lurking under the bones is pure gold.) Try bubbling a surfeit of gravy and the juices that have established in the roasting tin together in a shallow pan then introducing shredded greens served on mashed potato or potato cakes.

Sweet leftover favourites contain brandy butter spread on toasted panettone Xmas pudding crumbled into a frying pan with a glass of brandy and bubbled up as a dressing for vanilla ice-product, and mince pies mashed and folded into cold custard (excellent when you have had a little bit too considerably to consume). Most effective of all is torn panettone baked with eggs, sugar, cream and candied peel – bread and butter pudding with its Christmas hat on.

Bones, beans, bits and bobs

No make any difference how numerous aromatics you place in, it is the bones that make the broth. Ideally there will be a ham bone to share the pot with onions, carrots, thyme and garlic, but these of the roasted turkey or goose will do. Bones give the soup a satisfyingly silken top quality. If I have time, the beans will be dried, soaked right away, then boiled and simmered with bay and peppercorns. If not, a can will do.

Treatment is needed in what else we increase, but any new greens – cabbage, broccoli, chard and the like – are welcome, as are cooked carrots, parsnips and potatoes. A cold chipolata or two would be like obtaining buried treasure in your soup and the same with bacon, but this is not the location to chuck nearly anything and all the things.

The variety just one addition would be a lump of rind from the parmesan, which will quietly include a satisfying again-note of umami though it simmers. Serves 6

onions 2, medium
goose unwanted fat or olive oil 3 tbsp
carrot 1, around chopped
celery 1 rib, chopped
bacon 150g
rooster, turkey or goose inventory 2 litres
thyme 6 springs
bay leaves 3
rosemary 3 sprigs
bones (these types of as turkey leg or carcass) 1 or 2
peppercorns 8
parmesan rind (optional) a 5-10cm piece
butter beans 2 x 400g tins

Pesto, to finish:
garlic 2 cloves, peeled
basil leaves 50g
pine nuts 45g
olive oil 150ml
parmesan 30g, grated

Peel and chop the onions. Warm the goose unwanted fat in a casserole in excess of a moderate heat, insert the onions, chopped carrot and celery and prepare dinner till tender and pale gold. Slash the bacon into little items, cooking it till the fat is gold, then pour in the inventory and include the thyme, bay and rosemary. Submerge the bones, increase any meat juices or jelly, the peppercorns and a piece of parmesan rind if you have it, then provide to the boil. Decrease the warmth to gentle simmer for 45-60 minutes.

Crush the garlic to a paste with a pinch of sea salt then mash in the basil leaves, pine nuts and olive oil, then the parmesan.

Include the beans to the soup and continue on cooking for a further 10 minutes. At this issue you can skim off the extra fat if you want, but I really don’t – instead, relishing the silkiness it lends to the soup. Ladle into bowls and stir in the basil sauce.

Panettone custard

I like this bread and butter pudding when it is barely established, so you get spoonfuls of just-set pudding and a little trickle of custard, for which I suggest a baking time of 35-40 minutes. If you want your pudding puffed up – additional of a wobble than a quiver – then I counsel 40-45. Serves 6

For the custard:
eggs 4
complete-unwanted fat milk 125ml
double product 500ml
caster sugar 50g

panettone 300g
golden sultanas 50g
candied peel (optional) 3 tbsp
pistachios 2 tbsp, shelled
orange zest of 1

You will also need a 2 litre baking dish.

Established the oven at 160C/gasoline mark 3. Split the eggs into a bowl and conquer until combined. Insert the milk, product and caster sugar beat anything evenly jointly with a whisk. Tear or slice the panettone into substantial pieces and put in the baking dish.

Scatter the sultanas and peel between the panettone. Finely chop the pistachios and sprinkle over the leading. Pour the custard into the dish, soaking all of the panettone. Grate the zest of the orange about the surface area, then bake for 35-45 minutes until finally lightly set. To verify the pudding is all set, shake the dish – the custard must quiver in the center. Acquire it from the oven and depart to settle for 15 minutes in advance of serving.

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