Christmas leftovers... some ideas

So, hands up who bought too much food for one? I manage this every year, always with the mindset that friends might drop by or I might have an unexpected dinner guest on Christmas Night who has nowhere else to go. At the moment I'm looking at a large slab of belly pork on a plate in my fridge - some of that will be simply reheated for dinner tonight, accompanied by some of a lovely savoy cabbage I have and the rest of yesterday's roast parsnips.

If you're stuck for ideas, here's a few.

The quick chicken supreme work well with other poultry such as turkey, if you bought a small crown, guinea fowl or duck. And so will my cheat's chicken cacciatore - just make the sauce without the uncooked chicken, then add the cooked meat 10 minutes before the end, so it's thoroughly reheated.

Pie and risotto will take almost any filling - both are a good way to use up whatever leftover meat and vegetables you have to hand. Try my chicken and vegetable pie or chicken risotto.

My recipe for lamb in date and lemon sauce says uncooked lamb, but cooked will be fine - you'll be basically reheating it in the sauce in the oven. You can do the same with my fruity goat tagine - it doesn't have to be goat meat: leftover lamb or chicken will both be fine. A couple of slices of cooked lamb can also substitute for fresh chops in my lamb chops baked in the oven.

Soup is a go-to for Christmas leftovers. My game soup is ideal for leftover partridge, pheasant or other roast birds. My quick winter minestrone is very adaptable - the tomatoes, greens and pasta are the backbone, then just throw whatever else you have to hand in it.

If you have too many root vegetables lurking in your fridge, the winter root veg casserole is tasty and also simple and light after the richer food of Christmas Day.

If you have leftover cheese, you could make yourself a thrifty cheesecake or use some up in a stilton, rosemary and walnut scone.

Don't forget, quite a few of these can also be frozen once made - handy for those days when you don't feel like cooking but can pull something home-cooked from the freezer!

Smoked haddock and spring onion risotto

I'm back on the comfort food now the snow has arrived. Great steaming-hot piles of carbs help keep the cold out. My slow cooker has been hauled out of the cupboard to braise lamb shanks and oxtails to be accompanied by heaps of mash, a baked potato or chunks of crusty bread to mop up the gravy.

I also want rice and in this weather that means risotto. And I want fish too - the smoked haddock here produces a sunny yellow that lifts the spirits as the snowflakes drift past my windows.

What you need:
1 fillet smoked haddock
1/2 mug of risotto rice
1 small onion, finely chopped
Vegetable oil
Knob of butter
1/2 litre (1 pint) vegetable stock
2 spring onions, sliced diagonally into 1/2cm pieces
Chopped fresh dill
A little grated Gruyère or Emmenthal

What to do:
Heat the oil and butter in a sauteuse over a medium heat and fry the onion until it's soft and translucent. Add the rice and stir it through so every grain gets coated in the fat. Pour in a little stock and stir well, turning up the heat so it stays on a simmer.

Simmer the fish in a little water until it's just cooked, around 4-5 minutes. Lift it out, break it into large flakes with a fork and set it aside. Add the water to the rice, then keep ladling the stock into the rice and stirring until almost all the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is just turning from al dente. Add the smoked haddock and spring onion and grind in a little black pepper. As soon as the stock is absorbed stir in the cheese and dill and dish up.

Cook's tips:
I've discussed the difference between dyed and undyed smoked haddock before. You won't get the lovely bright yellow colour if you use undyed fish - the colour leaches into the cooking water and the rice takes on the yellow when you add the water to it. Tastewise there is no difference.

I don't bother to add salt as smoked haddock can be salty and there will also be salt in the stock. But, as always, check the seasoning before you dish up and add it if you need it.

Don't use parmesan, the traditional risotto cheese, for this, as the fish will overpower its flavour. I like the Swiss cheese as it adds a nice stringy texture as it melts and it's just strong enough to balance the fish. A medium strong cheddar also works well.

The prize-winning beetroot

I don't have an allotment (I wish), so I can't have a little boast about beating off stiff competition from other gardeners for growing a giant specimen.

However, I've just learned that my beetroot and broad bean risotto has just won a prize in a risotto competition organised by E Cuisine (they make stocks, if you're wondering, and no I haven't ever tried them although I think I'm about to get some as a prize).

I am chuffed to bits to have one of my recipes recognised this way.

If you missed it in March, here's the recipe again. Enjoy!

Beetroot and broad bean risotto

Risotto is my go-to comfort food when I need something soothing and creamy and I have two standby favourites - my chicken and pea risotto and a broad bean and bacon recipe, which I think I borrowed from Nigel Slater back in the mists of time. But once in a while I'll ring the changes and shuffle the ingredients around. Springtime offers endless possibilities, with all the lovely new vegetables coming into season. Earlier this week, I came home from the market laden with tiny haricots verts, young turnips and beetroots, purple sprouting broccoli, a bunch of asparagus, two globe artichokes (the first I've seen this year) and fresh garlic.

Wednesday's supper was going to be based around the purple sprouting - it's one of my favourite vegetables and only in season for a very short time so I tend to eat a lot of it when it's around. But then there was a change of plan and it was risotto for tea instead.

This is very brightly coloured but has a light, creamy texture and a surprisingly delicate flavour. Suitably springlike, it also hits the spot while there's still a nip in the air as we ease towards Easter. 

What you need:
Half a mug of Arborio rice
1 onion, chopped
2 small cooked beetroot
A mug of broad beans
A pint of vegetable stock
Half a glass of vermouth
Olive oil
Crème fraiche
Fresh dill and chives, chopped
Parmesan cheese
Seasoning

What to do: 
Blanch the broad beans and skin them. Dice the beetroot finely.

Sauté the onion in the olive oil over a medium heat until it turns translucent. Slosh in the vermouth and stir well. When it's almost absorbed, start adding the stock - little by little, stirring well each time and making sure it's almost absorbed before adding more.Test the rice after 15 minutes; it should be al dente. When it's at this stage add the broad beans. Keep stirring for another 5 minutes and add more stock if you need to. Add the beetroot and stir through very carefully.

Take the pan off the heat, stir through a generous teaspoon of crème fraiche, a handful of grated fresh parmesan and the chopped herbs. Season to taste.

Cook's tips: 
As usual with beetroot, it's a good idea to wear protective gloves when handling it if you don't want to stain your hands red. Ready-cooked beetroot saves you an hour of preparation time - don't buy the sort in vinegar though.

The easiest way to chop a very small amount of herbs quickly and finely is to put them in a coffee mug and snip them with kitchen scissors.

If you use frozen broad beans, dump them in a heatproof basin and pour boiling water over them. The water will cool fairly quickly and the skins should just slip off.

A chicken risotto

I've had one of those weeks where I've done very little cooking - there were a couple of evenings spent in the pub that saw me raiding the fridge for snacks at 11pm after drinking beer on an empty stomach. Then I got ill - too ill to cook - and ended up ordering Chinese takeaway to be delivered one night. And yesterday I just felt too lazy - the curse of the lone cook - and ate a pastrami sandwich and a slab of halloumi while parked on the sofa watching Nigel Slater doing infinitely more interesting things with food than I was.

Foodwise, from a health point of view it was not a great week - I didn't eat nearly enough fruit and veg, despite my best intentions. And drinking generally leads to cravings for fat and salt when the hunger pangs kick in, which is why I was picking at cold cuts and cheese before bedtime.

But before my chaotic week got properly underway, I did actually do some real cooking. I still had some leftover chicken in the fridge from the roast of a few days previously, plus a lovely bowlful of homemade chicken stock that had set to a deep golden, thick jelly. There was only thing on my mind - risotto.

Risotto is one of my favourite comfort foods - it's fairly easy to make although it does require attention (I find the stirring very relaxing as there's a lovely rhythm to it), and it's also a very good way of using up leftovers. This chicken risotto is one I invariably make after roasting a chicken. It's not dissimilar to the classic Venetian risi e bisi, although I don't like my rice quite as sloppy. I've been cooking this so long (decades), I have no idea where my recipe came from originally - most likely, my usual habit of seeing what food I had in the house and slinging it together. The quantities given make one very generous bowlful.

What you need: 
A handful of cooked chicken, torn into strips or chunks
A small onion, finely chopped
About 1/2 litre/1 pint of chicken stock
A glass of white wine or vermouth (optional)
Half a punnet of chestnut mushrooms, halved then sliced
Half a mugful of risotto rice
Half a mugful of defrosted frozen peas
A lump of parmesan cheese, grated
A few chopped sprigs of parsley

What to do:
An hour before you start, take the stock out of the fridge, skim any fat off it and let it come to room temperature to soften the jelly. Heat a little olive oil over a low heat in a heavy based sauteuse and gently fry the onion until it is translucent. Turn up the heat and tip in the rice, stirring it through with a wooden spoon until every grain is coated in the oil and it's "fried" a little. If you're using the wine, now is the time to add it to the pan - it will sizzle alarmingly and create a lot of steam. Stir it furiously with the wooden spoon. No wine? Use a ladleful of the stock.

Turn the heat down to moderate, keep the pan on simmer and keep stirring until all the wine or stock has been absorbed. Then keep adding the stock, a ladleful at a time. And keep stirring - the process helps release the starches from the rice grains to produce that lovely creamy texture. The whole process should take around 20-25 minutes.

About halfway through, add the mushrooms. Don't be scared by how much space they take up in the pan - they will shrink right down as they cook. Five minutes later, add the peas and the chicken. Cook for another five minutes or so, until all the stock has been absorbed and the rice is thickly creamy. Turn off the heat, stir in the grated Parmesan and serve, with the chopped parsley as a garnish.

Cook's tips:
Purists insist the stock should be hot before adding it but I rarely bother to tip it into a saucepan and bring it to the boil. As long as the heat under the sauteuse is just high enough to keep the risotto on simmer, it'll still work just fine. It's important to take the stock out of the fridge though - you do not want to be adding really cold stock to the pan otherwise the temperature of the risotto will fluctuate too much during the cooking. I usually boil a kettle before I start cooking in case I don't have enough stock and also because sometimes the rice may be more absorbent than others.

The rice - it's really important to have the right kind of rice, starchy and capable of absorbing a lot of liquid. The three main Italian risotto rices are Arborio, Carnaroli and Vialone and you can find at least the first two varieties in the supermarkets. Using basmati or American long grain just won't work. Spanish paella rice makes a good substitute if you can't find risotto rice.

The cheese - like the rice, the right kind of cheese is essential. Parmesan is the ideal and easy to find in supermarkets. Do not use those nasty drums of grated Parmesan dust though - the contents both smell and taste like vomit, not the effect you want to achieve. Good substitutes for Parmesan are Grana Padano, which comes from the same region but is a cheaper generic version, much like cheddars, but otherwise almost (not quite!) indistinguishable, or Pecorino, which is made in Sardinia from sheep's milk but has a similar texture.