Picture these scenarios:

i) Having had a month to master penne alla vodka, you throw a massive dinner party for all your friends.  The craic is, predictably, mighty. After everyone has supped heartily — and after more than a few drinks — you stand amidst the wreckage and contemplate the aftermath. Despite your friends’ massive appetites, you still have plenty of pasta left.  What to do with it?

ii)You’ve been planning this stunt for awhile.  You steal out of the Dining Hall into the cold, your plastic-lined pockets filled with the finest beef curry.  As the heat seeps through and sears your legs, you congratulate yourself on your haul — enough to sustain you in your studies for some time.  As your hands freeze, you pause to think: Now what?

iii)As you ride the bus back to Dublin from a long weekend back home in the country, you rummage through your backpack.  The large tub of food your mother forced upon you is constantly in the way: enough of her famous lentil-nut loaf and organic lemon tabbouleh to feed you and your housemates until exams.  Too much, to be honest — but you don’t want to waste it.

The central dilemma: how to use these leftovers, too valuable for a cash-strapped student to waste?

 

FOOD SAFETY

It is impossible to overstate the importance of handling your food safely. For a professional, it is a higher priority than cooking tasty food. The best-case scenario food poisoning for a healthy person is seriously unpleasant, but it can also be fatal. Ireland adheres to the ‘hazard analysis and critical control points’ (HAACP) system for commercial food production, which is important for industrial food chains but overkill for your average home cook.  The basics are very simple though: store your food securely and cleanly, at the right temperature, and cook it correctly.

Firstly, you need to keep the kitchen clean. If you keep the floor, counters and garbage bin clean, wash your dishes regularly, occasionally scrub out the fridge and cooker when they need it, and avoid attracting bugs or vermin, you are probably fine. You shouldn’t need much more than soap, hot water, and a little bleach to keep things safe. Wash your hands when you start prepping and every time you touch something gross (or raw animal products).  Keep your food unmolested by storing dry food (rice, pasta, grains, bread) in plastic containers or sealed bags.

Don’t try to save cash by skimping on clean sponges, dishcloths or tea towels.  As soon as the sponge starts looking dodgy, change it. Swap dishcloths and towels out regularly and wash them as hot as you can (Safefood recommends washing dishcloths every two days and trading out as soon as you wipe up raw meat).

Storing at the right temperature for the home cook means chilling food correctly.  Cool off leftovers as fast as possible and keep them in the fridge in clean containers.  Don’t put them in the fridge hot.  Not only are you likely to crack the glass shelves, you’ll raise the temperature of the entire fridge. Your fridge should be between 0-5℃, your freezer under -18℃. Lukewarm food is the ideal situation for bacteria — especially cooked rice– and after your third hour in agony on the floor of the bathroom, you’ll wish you hadn’t chanced the chicken alfredo that had been left out on the counter.

The other aspect of temperature is cooking your food hot enough.  There are lists of exact temperatures for every red and white meat, poultry, game and fish on the planet, and the precision-oriented can look them up. The basic rule of thumb is that your cooked meat should be at least 75℃, with the understanding that as your meat rests for a few minutes, the temperature will continue to rise a few degrees. For this, you will want a digital thermometer. Poke it into the thickest part and let it read. The visual signs of meat being cooked are not totally reliable – an inexpensive thermometer buys you peace of mind.

Lastly, don’t contaminate your cooked and raw food by using the same utensils, containers, cutting boards or dirty hands to touch one and then the other.

 

HOW TO TELL WHAT’S ABOUT TO GO OFF

Expiration dates are a lie.

That is not to say food doesn’t eventually go off.  It’s that determining expiration dates is not an exact science: it’s one part law, one part art, and one part the manufacturers covering themselves.  Officially, leftovers should be eaten within 3 days, though for low-risk foods, 4 or 5 days might be fine. Bottled water has an expiration date, but it’s a historical fluke of legislation, not a statement of safety. Canned foods like beans have expiration dates of 2 or 3 years, but undamaged canned foods can be safe for 10 or more years past that — the texture, nutrition and flavor don’t improve, but it isn’t going to make you ill.

In general, err on the side of caution with risky food like rice or cooked fish and eat it promptly. Trust the smell test for dairy, raw chicken and pork: you will never mistake chicken or pork which has turned the corner. Oils, fats, nuts and flour will smell and taste wrong when they have gone rancid. Honey, sugar, salt are good forever – Egyptian honey thousands of years old has been found, still edible.

HOW TO USE UP LEFTOVERS

The question remains: how to use the odds and ends you have accumulated? Many recipes in many cuisines exist exclusively to deliciously repurpose leftovers. Soup, in any culture, is almost always a product of something previous.

Rice

With leftover rice, you have the option of fried rice: cold rice fried with at least soy sauce and toasted sesame oil, plus whatever scrambled egg, bits of meat or veg you have left. You could equally scrounge up a hippie bowl: rice, quinoa or tabbouleh plus chopped up raw or cooked veggies, and a sliced avocado or a few tablespoons of hummus. Swap the hummus for salsa and put in some shredded chicken, mince or beans, add a little chili or fresh coriander and you have a burrito bowl.

Eggs

With eggs, you could fold chopped veggies, meat and cheese into an omelette.  Add a bit of potato or cold pasta and you could bake a frittata — essentially a scrambled-together baked omelette.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE PIE

While it’s cold, though, one of the most profitable uses of leftovers — or even fresh ingredients, if you have them — is in a pot pie. Feel free to change the collection of ingredients, bake it in a traditional double shortcrust or just top with pre-baked puff pastry at the end. I often make it with chicken or pork, but it can be made vegetarian or vegan. Even a curry-scented tofu pot pie isn’t out of the question. The lazy or destitute could skip the entire “pie” part of the equation and just serve the mix over buttered plain scones or toast.

 

Ingredients

450g pork tenderloin, boneless chicken, seitan or tofu, diced, or whole small button mushrooms, or cooked leftover roast beef, rotisserie chicken, fried tofu…

1 large potato, diced

1 large carrot, diced

1/2 cup frozen peas

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms (omit if you’re going with the button mushrooms above)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, chopped

1 tsp. rosemary and/or thyme (or mixed herbs, or even curry powder)

1 tsp. black pepper

3 tsp. butter, olive or vegetable oil

350mL stock, broth or low-salt bouillon

flour

salt, to taste

1 double shortcrust, or puff pastry, unbaked

 

Method

Preheat the oven to 190℃.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter and add the potatoes, mushrooms, garlic and onion.  Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes to get it started.  If your meat or tofu, etc. is raw, add it now and cook, stirring often, until it is browned all over and onions are translucent.  If your meat or tofu started off cooked, then add it after the onions have cooked down to translucent, about 10 minutes.  Add the carrot, peas, rosemary and pepper, stir to blend, and add about 4 TBSP flour and stir again until everything is coated.

Add the stock and bring the whole thing to a boil, then take it off the hob and let rest for a few minutes.  Add salt to taste.  What you want is a thick filling, so if necessary, add more flour a few teaspoons at a time, stirring well to mix, until the broth is no longer runny or watery — but don’t add too much or it’ll be dry.  This takes practice.

 

If you’re going with the double shortcrust:

Line a 20-22cm pie dish with the bottom half of the pie crust.  Spoon the filling evenly into the pie, place the top crust over it and pinch or crimp the edges shut.  (You might have leftover filling, so here’s where the buttered toast might also come in.)  Cut some slits in the top of the pie to vent steam, then put it into the oven.  Bake for about 25-35 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly and hot throughout.  Remove pie from the oven and let rest for 5-10 minutes for the filling to thicken and set up.

 

If you want to go the puff pastry route:

Turn down the heat on the filling to low and continue to cook for 30 minutes or so, stirring frequently, until the filling is thick and hot throughout.  In the meantime, on a lined or lightly greased baking tray, unroll the puff pastry.  Decide what vessels you intend to serve the pies in and cut the puff pastry to approximately the right size to cover each bowl like a lid.  Bake for 10-15 minutes until browned and puffed.  When the filling is hot and the meat fully cooked, spoon the filling into each bowl and top with a puff pastry lid.

 

If you’re going to eat it with toast, scones or by spoonfuls straight out of the pot:

Follow the procedure for the puff pastry method, but obviously omit the puff pastry and substitute in the carb of your choice.