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Glorious Rehash – A New Generation of Leftovers

Thin, melting slices of rare roast beef, eaten with a mustard dressing tinted with anchovies and capers; cockles in a hotpot of seafood broth, served with a garlic sauce; little cauliflower florets crisped in a pan with breadcrumbs and olive oil; the lightest shrimp shell and straw mushroom broth, made warmer still with needles of fresh ginger; a radiant, creamy squash soup, flavoured with melted, brandy-washed cheese; or perhaps a dish of rice spiked with allspice and green pistachios, cooked in a pan with shards of roast lamb …

A menu that sounds richly indulgent but which is a good deed: in all these dishes there is something that might otherwise have been thrown away. Leftovers – the skeletons, shells, skins and extra flesh of foods deserving of a better future. Landfill that became a tummy full.

If you pay more for the best raw materials, it makes sense to use up every little bit. When a cut of well-hung meat from a slow-reared, grass-fed animal costs between twice and four times as much as one that was reared indoors and forced to grow fast on an unnatural diet, spreading the cost becomes an economic necessity. But this is not the only reason to reduce waste. It is estimated that one-third of the food bought in the UK is thrown away, ending up in landfill where it rots, emitting methane, a major contributing factor to climate change. The value of this food is estimated at £8 billion yearly – sympathy wanes, in certain cases, with complaints about paying more for better food.

The case for eating leftovers has not historically been helped by gloomy offerings of unidentifiable rissoles, khaki-hued ‘mystery’ vegetable soups, or bubble and squeak. An occasional plate of fried, leftover greens and mash is bearable but taken weekly it is tedious. There are other ways: using the colour and fragrance of fresh herbs from a pot on the windowsill, trying interesting seasonings, adding piquant dressings, wrapping with good bread or thin, olive oil pastry. Abandon bubble and squeak, take those cooked sprouts or spring greens, shred them and fry them instead in butter with cooked rice or whole grains of wheat; add ras al hanout, a Moroccan spice mix, then perhaps some chopped celery and shredded cold cooked chicken, game or lamb; sprinkle with black onion seeds once piping hot, then serve with creamy Greek yoghurt and fresh coriander. Suddenly you have in front of you a feast, even if one grown from humble beginnings. As for the spare cooked potato, mix it with a little potato flour and beaten egg, then make it into little patties; fry them and eat with smoked haddock, fresh peppery watercress and soured cream. Two typical leftover Sunday lunch foods become two extra, economical meals.

Broth, or stock, is the tea of bones. How can a nation that is self-confessedly addicted to tea not feel the same about stock made from chicken carcasses, beef shins, fish bones or prawn shells? Like tea, stock warms the soul and revives flagging energy levels. It is impossible not to feel good after eating food made with stock. It is even time-economic: once in the pan, it bubbles along unassisted, ready to use in an hour, or to bottle and freeze. A risotto or soup made with real stock has reserves of natural, heavenly flavour that underpin the goodness in the other ingredients and cut the need for salt. Doctors should prescribe stock – and go some way to preventing heart trouble. Casting pearls before swine may seem all too easy, but eat the pig from the tips of its toes to the end of its ears and there will be money for gems.