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

This is the fridge’s finest hour. A bowl of cranberry sauce full to the brim shards of cold roast goose, turkey possibly some chilly roast potatoes, craggy and golden, and, joy 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 further than evaluate.

There is very little, basically practically nothing, I like accomplishing in the kitchen area extra than buying at leftovers. Those people bowls with saucers for lids, maintaining the buried treasure harmless until eventually we are completely ready to eat. A all set-designed breakfast, a midnight deal with, bounty to select at for the quiet days that adhere to the feast.

There are no rules. (Nevertheless I really should alert you to sniff almost everything to start with.) If you want to add a dollop of cranberry sauce to a fry-up of cold roast potatoes and sprouts, go for it. Furthermore bread sauce as a dip for crisp-fried turkey pores and skin or the final of the nut roast crumbled into a pilaf.

A fry-up does feel the most genuine solution to the conundrums at present residing in the fridge. The deliciousness will increase if there is any sort of gravy or roasting juices. (That jelly lurking under the bones is pure gold.) Try effervescent a surfeit of gravy and the juices that have set in the roasting tin together in a shallow pan then introducing shredded greens served on mashed potato or potato cakes.

Sweet leftover favourites consist of brandy butter unfold on toasted panettone Xmas pudding crumbled into a frying pan with a glass of brandy and bubbled up as a dressing for vanilla ice-cream, and mince pies mashed and folded into chilly custard (very good when you have experienced a bit also much to drink). Finest 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 subject how a lot of aromatics you set in, it’s the bones that make the broth. Preferably there will be a ham bone to share the pot with onions, carrots, thyme and garlic, but those of the roasted turkey or goose will do. Bones give the soup a satisfyingly silken high-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.

Care is necessary in what else we add, but any fresh greens – cabbage, broccoli, chard and the like – are welcome, as are cooked carrots, parsnips and potatoes. A cold chipolata or two would be like acquiring buried treasure in your soup and the identical with bacon, but this is not the put to chuck just about anything and almost everything.

The number a single addition would be a lump of rind from the parmesan, which will quietly add a satisfying again-notice of umami when it simmers. Serves 6

onions 2, medium
goose body fat or olive oil 3 tbsp
carrot 1, about chopped
celery 1 rib, chopped
bacon 150g
chicken, turkey or goose stock 2 litres
thyme 6 springs
bay leaves 3
rosemary 3 sprigs
bones (this kind 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. Heat the goose fats in a casserole about a reasonable warmth, include the onions, chopped carrot and celery and cook till tender and pale gold. Lower the bacon into small pieces, cooking it until the fats is gold, then pour in the stock and incorporate 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 carry to the boil. Lessen the warmth to light 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.

Incorporate the beans to the soup and carry on cooking for a more 10 minutes. At this point you can skim off the unwanted fat if you would like, but I never – 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 tiny trickle of custard, for which I counsel a baking time of 35-40 minutes. If you prefer your pudding puffed up – a lot more of a wobble than a quiver – then I counsel 40-45. Serves 6

For the custard:
eggs 4
entire-fat milk 125ml
double cream 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/fuel mark 3. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat right up until mixed. Add the milk, cream and caster sugar defeat every little thing flippantly together with a whisk. Tear or slice the panettone into substantial parts and area in the baking dish.

Scatter the sultanas and peel among the panettone. Finely chop the pistachios and sprinkle more than the prime. Pour the custard into the dish, soaking all of the panettone. Grate the zest of the orange more than the area, then bake for 35-45 minutes right up until lightly set. To verify the pudding is all set, shake the dish – the custard ought to quiver in the center. Choose it from the oven and depart to settle for 15 minutes right before serving.

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