My Holiday Desserts (and a Leftovers Pie)
Because I really do love pie I guess
Firstly, thank you for the comments and messages about last week’s essay (which was also about pie).
I know it’s already Christmas Eve (my turkey is brining in the fridge), but I wanted to send you a note with the desserts I’ll be making this year (and how I’m using leftovers). Below you’ll find:
Pavlova (I’ll take you through the steps so it’s great every time)
My recipe for a Leftovers Pie made with buttery, herby pastry.
Christmas Tree Sorbet (that’s right, it’s delicious)
None of these recipes require unusual ingredients (as long as you have a Christmas tree that is) so hopefully they might be some use to you this close to the big days.
Enjoy, and happy holidays to you,
Wil
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The Twilight of the Turkey
When I was a boy I was profoundly afraid of the leftover turkey.
I admit this sounds neurotic, but I believe my fear was merited.
After Christmas lunch each year, my father would loosely cover the turkey in foil and, with the fridge being too small, leave it on a small wooden table stained with detergent in the laundry room.
The thinking being that, because it had no heating and was cooler than the rest of the house, the laundry room would function as an ersatz walk-in fridge.
For several days following Christmas, until it became too dry and withered and, eventually, “ripe”, we would be encouraged to take meat from it for sandwiches.
I’m quite certain I never did.
If this newsletter, concerned as it is with the food and eating that comes after Christmas lunch, can convince you of anything, it would be this…
… take all the meat off your turkey as soon as you can after your lunch. While it is warm, ideally.
It is so much easier to take off the bone when warm. Doing so will use less space in your laundry room fridge, and it will keep from drying out in a sealed container much better than on the bone.
Which will make the following recipe all the better, and easier, to make the next day.
Leftovers Pie
Ingredients (feeds 5-6)
To fit a pie dish of 9inches x 2 inches (I made mine in a square dish of 8x8x2 inches)
Filling
700-800g of leftovers (Use whatever you have remaining from the turkey, vegetables, stuffing and sausages)
250ml heavy cream
1 tsp dry sage
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepperPastry
400g flour
3 tsp baking powder
200g butter (or shredded suet if you can get it)
Parsley leaves (about 3 tbsp when finely chopped)
Cold water
Egg for glazing
Method
Chop your leftovers into bitesize chunks and place in a pan. Add the cream, sage, bay and a few good twists of some freshly cracked black pepper. Bring this to a gentle simmer, cover and let cook away for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile we tackle the only remotely challenging part of the dish: the pastry.
This pastry is based on the old-fashioned suet pastry that I remember so fondly from my childhood in England. Puff pastry might be considered the pastry “par excellence” for much of the culinary world, with a technical difficulty to match.
But, for me, suet pastry is the choice for a truly great pie.
But I am not in England anymore, and suet is hard to come by in my small corner of Finland. Fearing that’s the case for many of you, I’m using butter as an alternative. It’s not the same, but it’s a good substitute.
The trick is to get your butter very cold and to grate it. I do this by putting my butter in the fridge overnight, then popping it in the freezer for ten minutes just before grating. I use a box grater for the job.
Mix your flour and baking powder together in a large bowl and add your cold, grated butter and chopped parsley. Briefly mix this together with your fingertips. The butter should not be worked together fully with the flour as though making shortcrust, the individual “gratings” of butter (or suet if using) are important to keep distinct. This gives a light flakiness to the cooked pastry.
Then take a glass of very cold water and, bit by bit, add it to the flour. Work the dough together with your fingertips and stop adding water once the dough all comes together into a ball and comes way from sides of the bowl. Don’t overwork it. This type of suet-style pastry can be quite tacky but, like bread dough, being wet can make for a good result. Wrap this in plastic wrap and leave in the fridge.
After 30 mins or so your turkey should have tenderised and the other ingredients flavoured your cream. I like to keep the sauce quite loose so it remains moist after baking in the pie itself. Taste, add salt as required, and let your filling cool down in the fridge.
We’re going the extra step with this pie and encasing it with the pastry on top and bottom. Take your pastry and roughly cut a third of it from the rest. This will be the lid. Roll the larger piece 5mm thick and line your pie dish with it. There should be plenty of excess overhanging the dish so trim enough that only a few centimetres remain for you to “crimp" together with the lid later. Pour in your cooled pie filling and drape over the lid (also rolled to 5mm). Trim any excess and crimp together with the base to seal everything.
Finally, cut a hole in the centre of your pie and glaze the top with beaten egg. Bake at 180°c/355°f for an hour or until it’s piping hot inside and golden brown on top.
Serve with leftover cranberry sauce, bread sauce (see my recipes here) and, some buttery mash.
Holiday desserts
One of the more quaint ideas I picked up as a fine-dining restaurant cook was the idea of the pre-dessert.
A pre-dessert is a very small sweet course directly after the main designed to freshen the palate on the way to the main dessert.
Often these would be sorbets. And the sorbet I’m sharing today would make a very fine pre-dessert following the turkey and before you find the courage to tackle something more substantial. It is a sorbet flavoured with needles from your very own Christmas tree. The flavour is fresh, and citrusy and, in the same way mint and eucalyptus is, very fragrant. After all that meat and potato, it’s the perfect dish to get your blood pumping and some freshness in your veins.
It’s certainly preferable to a post-lunch walk in the cold, I promise you.
Note: As a cook in the Nordics, I’m used to using Christmas tree varieties of spruce/pine/fir as ingredients. But I’m not a global expert on trees. Be sure of your specific variety (I used a Norwegian fir) and that it hasn’t been treated with nasty chemicals.
Pavlova
I’m not saying a good pavlova is a human right, but everyone deserves to experience one at its best from time to time.
It is a thing of such beauty. The violent waves of brittle meringue. Waves that shatter to reveal a cloud-like interior as delicate as the whisper of a lost love.
And the absolute fuck-ton of whipped cream and fruit dumped rudely on top.
I make this every Christmas (and throughout the year) because it is never not perfect. Follow the steps in the recipe linked below and I know you’ll find it perfect, too.
So there you have it. My Christmas repertoire (well, some of it) when it comes to leftovers and desserts. These are recipes I’ve tested 100 times in the past (and again this week) so you can be sure they will work for you as well.
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Thanks for reading and if you have any questions, just drop them in the comments,
Wil
OMG. Perhaps it's worth cooking a turkey just to make this pie! The turkeys of my past were always dry, so I've never cooked one myself. Great tip about taking the leftover meat off the bone.