This post is part of a series called Leftovers Like New, in which I explain my process for preparing leftover food in a way that doesn’t taste like leftovers. I take after my dad, who doesn’t like leftovers, but I also love to eat many different flavors in one meal (and I don’t like to leave the apartment), so oftentimes I will order enough food for two meals and plan on eating half later. I get pretty obsessive about re-cooking leftovers, to the point where L wonders what the point even is, when the amount of time I take to remake a leftover sometimes takes as much time as cooking a brand-new dish. The value, for me anyway, is in being able to taste what other chefs are doing while at the same time putting my own spin on dishes and adapting the flavor profile to suit my particular palate.
For various reasons, L and I ended up eating out a lot this past weekend, which resulted in an overwhelming amount of leftovers. The upside was that I had a great variety of food to play with: Indian, Greek, and Italian. All three restaurants had provided some sort of bread with our food and I decided to create different crostini. This was a lot of fun for me because I enjoy meals with a lot of variety, such as tapas or dim sum. There are times when I will order 2 or 3 appetizers at a restaurant instead of one main dish. I also feel fancy eating cute finger foods and this was a great way to make a rainy Monday more special.
On my way home from work, I grabbed a sourdough baguette to supplement the leftovers. As you can see in the picture above, we had quite the bounty of food. From left to right and top to bottom, we had formaggi e salumi (Barlago), sourdough baguette (Semifreddi’s), chicken tikka masala (Raj Indian Cuisine), lamb boti wrap (Raj), paneer pakora (Raj), beef/lamb gyro plate & falafel/dolmathes/hummus combo (Simply Greek), garlic naan & tandoori mixed grill (Raj), chili soup (canned), gnocchi bolognese (Barlago), hot sauce (Simply Greek), parmesan cheese (Barlago), cilantro mint chutney (Raj), and sweet tamarind chutney (Raj).
To L’s delight, I set the oven for 400°F. Fall has finally arrived in the Bay Area and the past week has been chilly enough to want to turn on the heat but not cold enough to justify a spike in our heating bill. Using the oven was a perfect excuse to infuse the apartment with warmth. While the oven was preheating, I threw the chili soup into a pot to reduce down at med-low heat and laid all bread-like items out on sheet pans. In the case of the leftover Indian lamb wrap and the Greek gyro, I pulled the naan and pita wrappers off and cut them into more manageable sizes. About 1/3 of the baguette was sliced as well. Everything toasted in the oven for 10 minutes, rotating pans half way through.
The lettuce in the Indian lamb wrap had wilted, so I discarded that and just kept the meat. Falafel, tandoori meat, and chicken from the tikka masala were sliced to lay flat and then everything was microwaved on high for 2 minutes.
I chopped up some basil and garlic greens to garnish. These are just what I had handy, but you could use literally anything you have laying around: herbs, vegetables, sauces, pickles, dips, etc.
For the chili, sharp cheddar cheese was sliced. L and I always have sharp cheddar in the apartment, which we buy in big blocks (more bang for your buck). Pro tip: to keep your cheese from molding in the fridge, don’t fully unwrap it. Instead, peel back the shrink wrap to expose only the cheese that you are going to cut off. When storing, tightly wrap the exposed side with foil. If you cut off more cheese at least once/week, the cheese will stay fresh and mold-free for over a month.
The paneer pakora (fried cheese), tikka masala sauce, and gnocchi bolognese (with the parmesan cheese) were microwaved on high for 3 minutes – gnocchi and tikka masala were stirred and nuked for another 2 minutes then garnished with basil.
Finally it was time to assemble! The toasted bread was topped with grain mustard, cheese, meats, and basil. Pickled veggies and arugula from the Italian meat & cheese platter were also plated.
Each pita was layered with hummus, gyro meat and tzatziki from Simply Greek. I ran out of gyro meat, so one of the falafel halves was also used. Olives from Barlago and garlic greens were used as garnish. Dolmathes (grape leaves stuffed with rice) went into the middle.
Naan from the lamb wrap was wrapped around lamb from the aforementioned wrap. I also added some of the tamarind sauce before rolling it up and skewering it. The rest of the naan received meats from the tandoori and tikka masala along with a mixture of the two indian sauces. I put the remainder of the cilantro chutney on the falafel, as it was pretty dry. More garlic greens topped everything.
Last but not least, the fries, chili and cheese were combined! I popped this in the microwave for 30 seconds, just to get everything really melty and delicious.
All together it was a pretty fabulous and fun feast. We even had leftovers from this, which were the perfect snacks the next day when J came over to watch the GOP debate. The next time I have to entertain on a short notice, I’ll definitely be checking my fridge for leftovers before buying stuff!
Happy Finger-Fooding,
D
P.S. Don’t forget to check out the Democratic Debate tonight.
monter au beurre 