The Thrifty Cookbook: 476 Ways to Eat Well With Leftovers (64 page)

This is a warm Indonesian salad made from strips of crunchy raw vegetables, such as mangetout, peppers and cucumber. You can also use up whatever vegetables you have lying around in the fridge – sliced finely or even grated – with strips of torn chicken or other poultry. Add bean sprouts for extra crunch. Serve with a slightly warm peanut sauce, either from a bottle or made by thinning 2 tablespoons of peanut butter with a little lime juice, a drop of Tabasco and a dessertspoon of water.

First cook some fine noodles, then drain and cool. Mix with minced leftover pork, grated carrot, shredded Chinese leaves or baby spinach, plus some chopped fresh mint and coriander. Flake some toasted almonds over the top and toss with a dressing of oil, a squeeze of lime, a dash of sesame oil and a pinch of dried chilli flakes.

Known as
panzanella
in Italy, this is a traditional dish all around the Mediterranean and in the Middle East. It’s more filling than your average salad and replete with the sunny flavours of ripe tomatoes, garlic, lemon and basil. You do have to use a staling baguette or ciabatta loaf, or some toasted Middle Eastern flatbread, because it simply won’t work with British bread, needing a higher proportion of crunchy crust.

ripe red tomatoes

a stale baguette or ciabatta loaf, or lightly toasted Middle Eastern flatbread

garlic

lemon juice

basil leaves

good olive oil

balsamic or wine vinegar

salt and pepper

Chop as many tomatoes as you think you will eat into bite-sized pieces and put the whole lot, including seeds and juice, into a serving bowl.

Add about the same quantity of bread, cut up into pieces of roughly the same size, and mix well.

Add some finely chopped garlic to taste, a good squeeze of lemon, a generous helping of chopped basil and a dressing made of 4 parts olive oil to 1 part vinegar. Turn the whole lot well. The salad should be wet but not sloppy, with enough juices to be soaked up by the bread, leaving none of it hard and dry. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave for a good hour before serving.

The rarer the meat the better – don’t bother with these salads if your meat is cooked through. For both salads, it’s crucial to trim the meat of any fat and gristle and slice it as thinly as you possibly can.

I make this salad a lot and generally buy a slightly larger piece of beef than we need, and hold back the very pinkest meat for the next day. Traditionally it is made from boiled beef but roast meat works just as well.

Serves 2

3 celery sticks or 1 fennel bulb, sliced extremely thinly

1–2 teacups (about 200g) leftover roast beef, sliced very finely into strips about 4 x 2cm

3 tablespoons good virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon wine vinegar or lemon juice

a pinch of sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

Arrange the celery or fennel on a large plate along with the thin slices of beef. Mix the olive oil with the vinegar or lemon juice and salt, then drizzle this over the salad. Finish with a good grinding of black pepper.