Creative use of leftovers; possible story idea

Hello everyone,
I'm chewing on a possible story idea about leftovers. Not just what to do with, say, the extra piece of pork tenderloin or the 7 stalks of celery, but how to approach leftovers, how to creatively use leftovers to make interesting, tasty and reasonably healthy meals. (I, for one, think everything tastes better when frittered)
I'm looking to talk/write/communicate with home cooks, preferably in the Chicago area, on how skillful they are with leftovers. (Those who fail miserably are invited to tell me their tales of woe). Where do you turn for inspiration when confronting leftover meat or leftover vegetables? Do you find yourself going the healthy route or the indulgent one? (ie fritters, batters, blankets of cheese and cream)What do you think it takes to successfully transform leftovers into something decent?
Please let me here from you, even if it is just to suggest I call someone you know.
Bill Daley
Chicago Tribune
312-222-3141
[email protected]

Hi,

At the drop of hat:

- I would make curry from the leftover meat, which parallel's the recipe From Julia Child's Kitchen
- Leftover chicken can be a rice pilaf, where extra vegetables are finely minced into it.
- Leftover rice from a Filipino friend: lots of minced garlic sauteed in oil then add the leftover rice.
- When I cook a pot roast I go overboard with added liquid and sauteed onions for a rather impressive and low effort French Onion soup.
- My Filipino friend had her family reject a dish made with rice noodles. She wrapped the noodles in eggroll wrappers, fried it and her family ate every crumb.
- My Oma pureed leftover vegetables making them into soup.
- Minced leftover meat and vegetables can be used to make stuffed vegetables or pasta shells.
- Fritattas is a great dark hole for disposing leftover odds and ends.

Is this a good beginning?

When you live in a household of two people and love to cook, proper use of leftovers are essential. I have found that the key is to alter the texture and delivery method of the item. Most people just re-heat leftovers which usually not very enjoyable unless it is a stewed item (or my black beans and rice, which get better after a day or two).

Leftover roast or rotiss. chicken easily gets shredded, spiced and becomes a schwarma-like sandwich when wrapped in some warm lavash (which is always in the freezer).

Leftover skirt steak gets sliced thin, a little extra seasoning and reheated on the grill with onions and peppers and served with some corn tortillas for a fajita like experience.

And, as I learned from Alton Brown, almost any combination of meats and/or veggies can be made into a grain or a quiche with some eggs and cream or cheese.

Best,
EC

One of the things that tends to make leftovers so despised is that leftover meat ends up grey, mushy, and overcooked when it's re-heated. When I'm going to be serving left-over meat or poultry, I try to avoid re-heating it. Cold chicken is fine, not just in a salad or on a picnic, but even on a plate with freshly mashed potatoes. It was Berghoffs that first taught me how tasty rare cold steak can be on a salad. I have a great Chinese salad recipe that calls for cooked chicken and one of these days I want to learn how to make that beef salad commonly served in Chicago's Thai restaurants.

Bill,

How about brat calzone?

Brat calzone, how the heck does one come up with brat calzone? Wellll, 'bout 7-8 years ago we had a brat theme BBQ. The words I live by are Nothing says Excess like Excess which the brat party followed to the letter. Suffice to say one does not need 28-lbs of brats for 24-people. Even after giving each man, woman and child a brat or 4 to take home we still had a ridiculous amount of brats leftover.

First day went smooth, brat and eggs for breakfast, brat on a bun for lunch and brat stir-fry for dinner. Day two started off swell, brat omelet with cheddar for breakfast, tomato, brat and onion salad for lunch, but started to bog down a bit at brat risotto for dinner.
By day three I was getting (very) dirty looks from my bride, but still we slugged down cheezy brat bake for lunch and brats with polenta for dinner.

Day 4 of our leftover brat marathon will be forever etched in my mind as the day I realized that looks could, in fact, not kill, because if they could I'd be dead as a doornail. The penetrating look of death my wife gave me as we sat down to our dinner of brat calzone was enough to curdle my blood. At that point I, finally, got the message and tossed out the remaining brats.

My wife, to this day, still won't eat a brat. In fact, she cringes at the mere mention. This is particularly tough on me, being a born and raised Wisconsinite, but is an idiosyncrasy I can live with.

Now, you want to hear the story of how we ate miso soup every morning for a year and a half?

I'll follow with my patented brat recipe.

Enjoy,
Gary
--

G Wiv's Brats

I grew up in Wisconsin, the home of the Brat. The key is to use a fresh brat, never a precooked one and to simmer them in beer and spices before smoking or grilling.

Loose Recipe for Brats:

5-lbs of Fresh Brats, take a fork and poke* holes in them, 28 holes per brat to be exact, and you must use a 3-pronged fork.

Beer to cover** the amount of Brats you will be simmering and 9 extra for the chef to drink.

7 fresh garlic cloves smashed with the side of a large knife, not chopped just smashed.
3 quartered onions
1 to 6 oz of hot sauce
Any other spices you want to toss in. I have found there is a direct correlation between the amount of beer you have drunk and the amount and variety of different spices that you will put into the simmering liquid.

Simmer, do not boil, the brats in the beer, garlic, onions and hot sauce for 30 minutes. Turn off heat and let sit in mixture for at least 1 hour. This allows the brats to absorb the flavors of the beer, onions, garlic and hot sauce. If the brats rest for over an hour refrigerate.

Grill over a moderate fire.

Serve on Brat buns, somewhat like a French roll, with Koops horseradish mustard, chopped onions and hot pickled peppers, peppers are optional.

If you want to jazz up the brats a bit, pour off all but 1/2-cup of the remaining brat liquid, simmer until the onions are soft and beer is evaporated. When liquid is evaporated add butter and caramelize onions.
When onions are caramelized add mustard, preferably Koops, and stir. The mixture should come together nicely.

Note:
* There is some controversy as to the efficacy of poking holes in the brat. I feel that a few holes allow the beer/onion/hotsauce to be absorbed by the brats, others contend the holes cause the brat to dry out during the grilling stage. YMMV

** It is not necessary to use all beer, half water, half beer is perfectly acceptable outside of Wisconsin.

Enjoy,
Gary Wiviott

I like brats better when they're not parboiled. Just poke holes and grill. You have to be careful about flare-ups; in exchange you get cleaner flavor and a toothier texture. But all the cheeseheads like to parboil. Even my mother-in-law, raised Mormon, parboils in beer.

... and brat stir-fry for dinner

At least I'm not the only one who has made bratwurst fried rice and enjoyed it!

wow, given the knowledge and imagination of this boards denziens i'm both eager and slightly scared to see where this all goes. bill's initial suggestion that frying anything bestows instant edible credibilty is both time honored and true. i have an extremely fond memory of pressing together two slices of pizza quatro formaggio face-to-face, beer-battering and deep frying for what i will know call "the breakfast from hope."

more fun for me than leftovers however, is what to make from all the "odds and ends" canned and durable goods which accumulate in the back of the cabinet. for my neighbors and me this has developed into a quarterly event; a melange of fear factor and iron chef where the secret ingredient is "everything" and the rules stipulate that all items in the pantry not only can be used, but must be used. suffice to say, there is a very fine line between the culinary creativity one learns in school and recipes that appear on the back of a ritz cracker box. dancing on that line however can make you feel like astaire and rogers in the kitchen.

Used some leftovers last night for stuffed chicken breasts (skin-on bone-in).
Stuff with:
Smoked gouda cheese
Fresh cilantro leaves
sliced or two of homegrown tomato

Surpised how well the cilantro paired with the smoke gouda.

A few notes:

1) When cooking for two, you better have a plan to use up all of the leftovers. Generally, I make 4-6 servings of a dinner entree so that there are leftovers that I can use for packed lunches for the next day or two. Personally, I am more likely to get a good balanced meal for lunch when I prepare it than I will if I run out to one of the local places for lunch.

2) When I ran a cafeteria too many years ago, profitability is largely determined by how well you can rework your leftovers. Most meats and some vegetables can form the base of a good soup. Left over mashed potatoes can be formed, seasoned and grilled as a potato patty. When you put your mind to it, you would be surprised how much is reworkable.

I thought I was pretty good until I went to graduate school and saw what some of the southern cafeteria chains - Morrison's, Luby's, and Furr's did with their leftovers - and the stuff was phenomenal.

3) I use chili and/or soup several times a month to use up some of the limp celery, leftover onions, sprouting garlic, etc. that accumulates in the corners of my refrigerator.