Preparing your Christmas feast - and dealing with the leftovers - may be more important than how you trim your tree.
At least, that's Alain Bossé take on the holidays. Known to his more than 36,000 Facebook page followers as The Kilted Chef, the Pictou County, N.S. chef has got you covered when it comes to getting the most from Christmas leftovers.
His biggest piece of advice? Get that turkey trimmed before putting it away in the fridge or freezer to ensure nothing goes to waste.
“We’re all full and tired at the end of Christmas dinner, and you just want to sit and watch TV, but you need to take the meat off the bones sooner rather than later,” says Bossé. “That’s my biggest tip, as it wastes less meat.”
Cooking outside the box
Bossé regularly shares Acadian and other Atlantic-Canada-inspired cooking tips and specific recipes with his audience as he shares his cooking in live-streamed videos.
With viewers having been in touch recently and looking for creative ways to reuse Christmas dinner leftovers, he’s gotten to thinking.
“Our shows between Christmas and New Year's are all about using leftover turkey, and our viewers have been asking for creative ideas they can use for not just the turkey, but whatever else they have left,” says Bossé.
“They’re looking for things other than the typical hot turkey sandwich or soup.”
The chef has since come up with a couple of creative ways to use turkey and other dishes leftover from Christmas dinner, all of which he says should be used no more than four days after they’re first refrigerated.
For potatoes, he’s suggesting people try baking biscuits made from leftover mashed potatoes.
“We always have mashed potatoes left – it’s the one thing everyone always makes too much of – so we do a savoury biscuit made with mashed potatoes,” he says. “It’s a southern thing … with an added Atlantic Canadian twist to it of summer savoury.”
Atlantic Canada Seafood Pie for the Holidays
Posted by The Kilted Chef on Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Seafood options
That recipe, along with another for enchiladas made with leftover turkey, will be featured in upcoming Kilted Chef live streams. But turkey is not the only leftover that Bossé is proposing a creative solution for, as he suspects more people than ever might include seafood as their main course this Christmas.
“Some people are veering away from the traditional turkey to lobster,” he says.
“There are all kinds of things you can do with lobster leftovers after a big lobster feed, like a really nice bisque, or cream lobster on toast, also known as a hot lobster roll.”
Whatever creative solution you fancy, Bossé recommends all cooks to keep in mind not only that four-day fridge window but also the fact that while things may not spoil as quickly in the freezer, proper packaging is important in ensuring they freeze well.
“Things will go freezer burnt if they’re not sealed properly, so I always recommend a good zip-locking plastic bag or an actual sealer. If they aren’t sealed properly, things exposed to air could be ruined even a week or two,” he says.
Leftovers like stuffing freeze easily when separated into smaller portions, according to Bossé, who freezes his own stuffing in small squares that he and his wife, Johanne, will reuse later.
And while getting creative can make routine leftovers more appealing, there is nothing wrong with keeping traditional and using turkey bones for a broth, whether for noodles, soup, or gravy.
“Whatever you decide to have with that turkey dinner, along with the turkey trimmings, will make a great sandwich or soup, especially carrots, yams, and sweet potatoes,” he says.
Creamed Lobster sauce on toast
- 1 lb lobster meat, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 tbsp white vinegar
- 1/2 cup heavy cream (35%)
- 1/4 cup light cream (18%)
- 1 tbsp chopped chives
Melt butter in a frying pan, add lobster meat and fry until lobster becomes bright red and it begins to pop and sizzle in the pan.
Add vinegar and cook until almost gone, finish with cream and chives, reduce for a minute or two. Serve on toast.
Mashed potato biscuits
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp white sugar
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 cup mashed potatoes warm
- 1 cup buttermilk
Preheat oven to 425 degrees and prepare an eight-inch cast-iron skillet, set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in the butter until a pea-size meal is created. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl, combine the warm potatoes with the buttermilk and whisk to blend. Pour the potato mixture into the center of the dry ingredients and fold until moistened. The dough should be a bit sticky; add a little more flour if necessary.
Sprinkle a dinner plate with flour, using an ice-cream scoop or large spoon to portion the dough into balls and roll in the flour to coat completely, then shake off excess flour.
Pack the biscuits tightly together in the prepared pan, leaving no space in between.
Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the oven and brush with butter before inverting onto a plate and cutting apart at the seams with a spatula.
Guide to leftovers
- Food that has not been left out for more than two hours can be refrigerated or frozen for later use.
- Thick meats or turkeys should be sliced and cooled in trays no deeper than two inches.
- Have you made soup from your turkey? Cool it in a container that's no more than two inches deep, and stir periodically while in the fridge to speed up cooling.
- Cover food loosely while cooling, then tightly covered.
- Don't overfill the refrigerator - this will reduce circulation
- Consuming leftover turkey within four days is key. Gravy and stuffing have a two-day shelf life.
- When you reheat your leftovers, bring gravy, soup, sauces and other leftovers to a boil - all other items should be reheated to 165°F or until steamy throughout.
Source: Nova Scotia's holiday food safety factsheet
