Look at that sandwich. It's made of leftovers, can you imagine?
This month is Lurpak's Freestyle Food Month, and I'd like to tell you a story about my fridge.You can tell if someone's got their life together by the amount of leftovers in their house. Think back to your darling parents' kitchen. When you take a look in their fridge, you'll probably find three-fourths of last night's moussaka tucked between a hermetically sealed pouch of smoked salmon and an antipasto you can't pronounce. On top of this, whatever else remains from the previous meal will be stored in a Tupperware. One of those fancy ones, with air-lock clips.
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Now look in your own fridge. If you managed to restrain yourself from inhaling the entirety of the last dinner you didn't microwave, then there's probably an indiscernible portion of it clumsily wrapped in cling film and very little else. After all, you're young, busy and you don't see the point in cooking at all if you're just cooking for one. When only Dr Oetker is accompanying you at the table, there aren't usually leftovers once dinner's done.I'm the very worst at this. For some strange reason, meal planning and weekly shops don't fall high on my to-do list. Even though my cupboards are permanently empty and running out of ketchup is an emotional hurdle I just can't clear, I'm convinced it's the trade off for the heady excitement of my twenties. Right?Wrong. I recently decided I'm going to buy food like a real person. Tins will fill my shelves and meat will frost over in my freezer, ready to be thawed for a future roast. Amazingly, it seems to be working. So well in fact that the other day I found myself in a situation that's rarely occurred since I moved out of home.
I had leftovers. Lots of them. You can see them in this picture, and that's me, standing proudly next to them. Knowing there were few dishes which could accommodate such a cornucopia of flavour, I figured I'd try freestyling it and throw a party where they were all welcome. By this I mean a giant sandwich I made up on the spot, for your amusement and edification. Strap in folks, and get ready for the greatest sandwich-based ride of your life!
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Without further ado, let's venture into vegetable territory.
For many of us, the vegetable crisper is a useful way to keep rotting produce hidden from sight when you go to grab a beer. When I chucked a red and white cabbage in mine the other day, I honestly thought I wouldn't see them until I had to pressure-wash the drawer they'd spent the last three months disintegrating inside. Now that I had cause to make up this sandwich, I thought I'd actually break them out before then and chop them into a delicious chunky coleslaw.
And if I was going to make coleslaw from scratch, I should probably make the mayo from scratch too. I separated the yolks and tipped them into a bowl, dumping the whites into a nearby glass. I decided to drink the whites, because that'll help in the gym, right? I'm into getting swole. After whisking in oil and mustard, my mayo was finished. I kinda made it up as I went along. So behold; a completed coleslaw.
The real star of the sandwich was going to be steak. On a side note, one of the first things my father taught me how to barbecue was a steak. I remember how we lit the coals in a small metal chimney and watched them burn to embers. He then tipped them into the bottom half of the drum, spreading them evenly across the base.
When the steak had warmed to room temperature, he seasoned only the top side, because anything on the bottom would just fall to the coals when placed on the grill. An inch thick steak needed to be turned after four minutes, then grilled for a further three. We cut it after it had rested on a chopping board. As he had promised, it was a perfect medium rare.
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Sadly, there's no room for a barbecue in my South East London flat, so I just whacked my steaks in a pan. It was less 'Merica than the way my dad does it, but it was still a lot of sizzling fun. Steaks are the king of meats, wouldn't you agree? I think about them a lot.
Prior to the culinary journey you've come along with me on, I'd chosen a rye loaf from a bakery in South London who started making organic bread before people thought to ask if bread was organic. I knew one slice would be dense enough to support the structure about to be loaded on it, but I was going to need take further steps to prevent it all from crashing down.
I spread a decent chunk of Lurpak across both slices. It would hold the filling to the bread, serving as the safety harness that kept everyone inside the ride. I didn't have time to knead harder butter about (I was getting hungry at this stage), so I went for the spreadable version.
These days, it's typical to see short order cooks melt cheese over meat by steaming it. When everything's on the grill, they squirt a bit of water on to the flat top then cover it with a pan. After a minute or so, they're left with a glorious, gooey wad of beef and cheese. Delicious.
I will concede that this sounds better than putting cheese on bread and covering it with meat, which is what I did, because I'd forgotten about the first trick. But I can be forgiven, because this is freestyling, remember? Whatever. You know it still tasted pretty great.
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Still, my sandwich assembly was in full swing. I found an avocado at the back of my cupboard and scooped that on top of everything. The croquettes came out of the oven and the coleslaw from the fridge. On they went. The construction was a delicate process, and at any moment I thought it might topple like a Jenga tower. Fortunately, my improvised monster sandwich just about held true.
Here it is folks, my leftovers Leviathan, trembling on a plate like a house of cards. And here I am, with my creation:
How did it taste?It was obviously delicious – look what's in there! But this was as much about the process, as it was the taste, wasn't it? Jackson Pollock's finished paintings weren't always pleasing on the eye, but we loved them because the thought of him chaotically lobbing oils at a canvas challenged something within us. I'm not comparing my dinner to the canon of an artistic icon (well, maybe I am), but I am saying there's a lot of value, flavour and fun to be found in making stuff up as you go along.And if there's nothing in your cupboards, or no leftovers in your fridge, that's something you can't do. You should probably try going freestyle in the kitchen once in a while, it'll do you good.
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