Stephanie Moon, consultant chef at Rudding Park Hotel in Harrogate, sent me several of her favourite recipes – and mighty tasty they are too by all accounts. Here’s one I especially like the sound of:
Leftover Spicy Turkey, Giant Couscous, with Crisp Green Salad (serves four)
Make a stock from the turkey bones with a couple of peeled and chopped onions and washed chopped leeks. Bring to the boil, covering the carcass in cold water, then simmer for 1 hour until all the goodness from the bones has been extracted. Skim any froth that floats to the top. Sieve the liquid and put aside. Alternatively make up three pints of chicken stock and move to the next stage.
Boil some giant couscous in cold salted water until it softens. Whilst you are doing this, fry a couple of peeled, finely chopped onions or leeks. Add three flat teaspoons of your favourite store cupboard spices to the onion (whatever you have within reason, but watch out for the lethal dried chilli!). Add some of your roasted vegetable leftovers, cut up some peppers or add cherry tomatoes or spring onions. Now add your turkey pieces (approximately 300-500g) depending on how much turkey you have left.
Add the drained giant couscous and some fresh chopped fresh parsley or tarragon. Try to avoid dried or hard herbs such as rosemary or thyme as they will not soften enough to stir all the mixture together.
Serve the turkey couscous with your favourite crispy salad. Mix in a tablespoon of olive oil, a teaspoon of fruit vinegar and teaspoon of wholegrain mustard, then toss the salad adding a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime.
If you’ve plenty of turkey and ham going spare you can’t beat a decent pie. Here’s one that goes down a treat with diners at the Devonshire Fell Hotel in the Yorkshire Dales:
Turkey and Blackenhall Ham Pie
2kg Cooked Turkey
500g cooked ham
2 onions finely diced
4 large carrots Diced
2 leeks sliced
800ml cream
Good bunch chopped tarragon
2kg turkey stock
Glass of good white wine
Seasoning
Bought in puff pastry
1. Sweat off the onions with a knob of butter on a medium heat. Do not colour
2. Add the carrots and leeks and cook until the carrots start to soften
3. Add the white wine and reduce by half
4. Add the cream and stock and reduce by a third
5. Add the turkey, ham , tarragon and season to taste
6. Place into an oven-proof tray
7. Roll out the puff pastry and lay over the top. Crimp the sides and brush with egg wash to get a nice glaze
8. Place in the oven on 180C. for about 15 to 20 minutes
Serve with some duck fat potatoes with sprouts and chestnuts
Finally, in my book a man can never eat too much Christmas pud – so here’s a variation on the theme from Richard Booth, head chef at Lakeside Hotel on Windermere:
Eggnog and Christmas Pudding Tart
250g flour
140g butter
½ lemon zest
50g icing sugar
1 large egg
40g ground almonds
150g Christmas pudding
5 medium eggs
75g caster sugar
500ml UHT whipping cream (not fresh)
Fresh nutmeg
Make a sweet pastry with the flour/butter/lemon/icing sugar and large egg. Blind bake this and when cool you are ready to put the mix in. For the mix, add the caster sugar, five eggs and cream together. Do not whisk but beat together, fill the tart case ¾ full then break up the Christmas pudding in small pieces and sprinkle over the tart. Finish with freshly grated nutmeg. Bake in oven for 40 minutes at 100C. until the mixture has a slight wobble when gently shaken.
Have a happy – and indigestion-free – Christmas!
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