So Dear Reader, you've got leftovers after Christmas. What better way to make them deliciously appetising than combining them in a leftover pie layered with all the best parts of Christmas in one! Each forkful gives you Christmas dinner in every bite. This is such a wonderful way to serve up leftovers and this leftover pie is served with homemade gravy (of course!)
Christmas leftovers are part of the Christmas experience. And for the first couple of days it's nice to be able to relive Christmas dinner but then it gets to a stage where it becomes burdensome to eat all of the leftovers and you just want them gone. The next best thing is to make them into this Leftover Pie.
This leftover pie works with pretty much all leftovers. If you have leftover chicken, turkey, salmon, beef or nutroast or just a whole bunch of vegetables this works like a dream. For us it was leftover pork belly, apple sauce, stuffing, roast potatoes and feta stuffed peppers. I was so excited to make this and even more excited to eat this. It was even better than I expected and was utterly delicious.
Tips for Making a Leftover Pie
1- I use cake flour for pastry as it makes it easier to roll. Cake flour is lower in protein so it doesn't make the dough as stretchy or bouncy (less resting time) and gives it a beautifully "short" texture.
2 - The softer the filling, the more cohesive a mixture for slicing - think mashed potatoes vs roast potatoes. I would also put peas on the very top layer if you are using them for structural integrity.
3 - Make sure that your leftovers are cold when you put it in the pastry.
4 - For a clean slice, cut the pie up when it is cold although it eats delicious cold, warm or hot from the oven.
5 - This is wonderful with homemade gravy. I roasted my porchetta on Christmas Eve and poured pan drippings in a container and chill it in the fridge to separate the fat from the rest. Once chilled it separates naturally you just lift the fat off in one layer (you can use the pork fat to roast potatoes or in bread). To the remaining drippings I added 2 cups of water (usually I'd use stock but the drippings were salty from the porchetta crackling) and heated it up and then turned it down to low and thickened it with 2 tablespoons of cornflour mixed with 4 tablespoons of water.
This was so delicious that from now on I'm going to make Leftover Pie a tradition every year. Mr NQN is a man of very few words but as he ate this he murmured, "This is a really good idea," to himself and then guzzled down the leftovers quickly. We finished this entire leftover pie so quickly and it was eaten just after Boxing Day.
Boxing Day was a relaxing day and I watched tv while Mr NQN windsurfed. We had spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Mr NQN's family and Christmas Day was a day at the beach. The Christmas Day forecast showed glorious pitch perfect weather and his sister Araluen got to Shelley Beach at 9am to secure a prime position right by the water. Christmas Day passed without incident-just! Everyone was there including Mr NQN's sister's husband Laporello who is an eccentric guy. We haven't seen him in a long time and the last time I went on facebook I noticed that he was trolling feminist and Me Too group pages. "Omg we're related to one of those guys," I said to Mr NQN when I saw what he posted.
I made a promise to myself to not engage with him because it was Christmas after all. But then halfway through our beach picnic lunch he started in on how he didn't think that people needed to say "Please" and "Thank you" anymore. His wife, Mr NQN's sister Amaya grimaced and her body language was uncomfortable and limp and she looked a bit embarrassed by this pronouncement. The rest of us looked aghast and I told him that we live in a society and that is the lubricant. "But I promised myself I was not going to engage with you! I have seen your opinions on facebook," I said putting my hand up.
He laughed and told us that he has been repeatedly banned from groups on facebook for trolling. But Laporello wanted to keep making his point about niceties. "It's getting out of hand this saying please and thank you, it's ridiculous!" he said. Nobody agreed with him but also nobody wanted to engage with him because up til this point we were all having a lovely time at the beach.
Until his 8 year old son Jett piped up, "Thank you for sharing your opinion with us!" dismissing his father's diatribe and cutting him off. That broke the tension immediately and we all laughed. "He schooled you!" said Araluen laughing. Even Laporello had to concede that he had been told to shut up in the nicest possible way by his own son. Out of the mouths of babes...
So tell me Dear Reader, do you say please and thank you or do you think that they're unnecessary? What do you do with leftovers? What did you do on Boxing Day?
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