My sister Lee recently arrived for a visit, fresh from several days at her in-laws’ home. Last night, while I sliced russet potatoes for oven fries, then sautéed ling cod dredged in cornmeal, she regaled me with stories of cooking in an under-equipped kitchen. Her British-born mom-in-law, a survivor of the London Blitz, endured the privation and hardships of rationing that went on in Britain until 1954; as a result, she doesn’t like cooking, and dislikes leftovers. Lee, who likes both, found herself chopping vegetables with a paring knife and engineering a steamer for the new-crop B.C. asparagus with a layer of foil in a roasting pan.
This lack of the right tools made me wonder about the cause and effect of disliking leftovers and cooking. Of course, a simple task is made much harder without good basic tools, but the idea of not wanting leftovers in the house got me thinking about the tricks of the trade that smart home cooks and restaurant chefs alike employ to make cooking an efficient and pleasurable experience. Many of them involve what might look like leftovers.
For instance: instead of cooking a meal as a one-off, consider planning for leftovers to utilize in another meal (leaving room for some things — for example, fish, which is genuinely best on the day it is prepared and not at all good reheated). Whenever I feed my sourdough starter with an eye to making bread, I also make a batter for sourdough waffles, and put a batch of sourdough pizza dough on to ferment. Both keep for a few days in the fridge. Whenever I make rice, I cook extra and plan on having any of a million variants on fried rice or deconstructed jambalaya or rice bowl or rice-stuffed vegetables or rice fritters. When I make soup or stew, or braise pork shoulder, chicken thighs or beef short ribs, I always plan to convert part of the leftovers into a different dish a day later. My freezer is full of ingredients cooked on an earlier date: chicken stock, beans, bolognese sauce, soup, roasted tomato sauce. Because of my total fondness for caesar salad with seasonal variants, I always have a jar of homemade caesar vinaigrette in the fridge, plus croutons and some really good vinegars in the pantry. When I simmer stock for pho, I make enough for several meals and freeze some. And routinely, whenever I make beans with smoked pork hock, or pizza, lasagna or cannelloni, I cook enough to freeze several meals’ worth as well as today’s supper. And nothing freezes as well as pie dough, cookies and bread.
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My recent series on tools and techniques addresses the importance of choosing tools that make the task of cooking more successful and pleasurable. But good cooking is more than using good tools: smart cooks look ahead to the next meal. The act of eating occurs repeatedly on life’s continuum, and marshalling your ingredients to do double duty is just good sense.
Making the leap from resenting cooking to taking pleasure in it takes practice, good tools and a change of perspective. Adapting leftovers as building blocks is one such context shift. So first we eat, then we talk a bit more about building better meals.
Vegetable fritters
Zucchini is one of those vegetables people invite to the party by planting a handful of seeds, then spend summer and fall looking for people to accept their invitation to dance with the devil. I like grated zucchini in chocolate cake, muffins, banana loaf and burgers of all types, and sliced zucchini in quiches, frittatas, cannelloni and lasagna. And that’s just for starters. When I’ve misjudged and grated more zucchini than I thought I needed, I make fritters. These tender fritters straddle the line between sweet and savoury with aplomb, relying on the warm bite of Turkish-grown Aleppo chili flakes.
Makes 6 fritters.
- 1 zucchini, coarsely grated and squeezed dry
- 1 carrot, coarsely grated
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ c. minced chives
- ¼ c. minced cilantro
- 1 egg
- 1 Tbsp. flour or gluten-free equivalent
- ½ tsp. Aleppo chili flakes
- ½ tsp. rubbed oregano
- ¼ tsp. dried thyme
- ½ tsp. smoked sweet paprika
- 1 tsp. Hungarian chili powder
- 1 c. finely grated Parmesan cheese
- Salt and pepper to taste
Combine all ingredients, then drop by large spoonfuls onto a hot griddle or cast iron pan that has been preheated and lightly oiled. Flatten gently with a metal spatula, and fry, turning once. Serve hot with bean salad or sausages, or alone with maple syrup and applesauce.
