where the image is meant to titillate and inspire the cook
It’s that time of year again. Time for the Annual Leftover Turkey Soup. This year with beans! Huge, enormous, gigantic beans! And lots of fresh herbs. Rosemary, sage, thyme, and bay perfume a broth that is rich and flavorful. The beans are super-plump, tender and creamy. Nutty, cheese notes brought by a sprinkling of Parmesan and piquant spice notes by red chile flakes complement the shredded roast turkey. This year’s leftover soup is a huge delectable winner!
For Thanksgiving, we always serve The Stuffing Everyone Loves, and there is always plenty leftover because, you know, we never want to run short on that! Rustic ciabatta, with its porous, chewy texture is the perfect bread for this stuffing. A 50-50 ratio of vegetables (mushroom, celery, onion, and leek) to the volume of ciabatta creates a balanced, not overly bready-y dish. Plenty of butter, Italian parsley and butter-fried sage bring the classic flavors of the season.
Leftover from the green bean topping, there were homemade bacon bits. And miscellaneous cheeses were leftover from our appetizer buffet.
I happened to purchase extra mushrooms when shopping for the Thanksgiving feast. And so, two days later…the tasty Leftover Stuffing Mushroom Casserole was born. I suspect your favorite leftover Thanksgiving stuffing would work equally well with this basic template.
I don’t know anyone who cooks a brisket for 6 hours plus, and doesn’t make enough for leftovers. It is great simply re-heated in the sauce. It also freezes well and can be repurposed in tons of other great dishes like tamales and sandwiches. This year, our Rosh Hashanah brisket morphed into quesabirria tacos.
We first tried quesabirria tacos when grazing on The Vegas Strip. My nephew, Stone, was telling us that Birria Tacos with Consomé had been trending all over social media, and we had to give them a try. Gracias, Stone!
Quesabirria tacos (aka red tacos) are super popular and bursting with unctuous deliciousness. They are composed of just three ingredients – meat, cheese, and corn tortillas. They are served with a dipping sauce on the side called consomé. After several hours of cooking, the sauce in which the meat is cooked becomes rich and complexly flavored. The layer of fat from meat flavors and crisps the tortillas, and the liquid becomes the dipping sauce.
Mexican consomé is made with chiles and common Mexican spices such as cumin, oregano, and cinnamon. My holiday brisket consomé is equally flavorful in a different way, it is umami-rich but not spicy at all.
Leftovers of Peking Duck with Steamed Buns
Accompaniments: Scallion, Pickled Daikon, Cucumber, Sugar, Hoisin
The concept of a “doggie bag” or taking home leftovers from a restaurant meal is not an American invention. It’s been around since the sixth century B.C. when Romans would wrap up goodies from a banquet meal and take home the leftovers in a cloth. It showed respect and honored the host, implying the food was good and was worthy of taking home. Food preparation way back then could not have been easy, so, seriously, whose ancestors wouldn’t take the bountiful offerings from the big buffet back to their humble abode?