Day 194: happy-making magic
Those who know me know how mad I go for turkey - eating it as often and as much as I can during the months of November, December and January. It’s never too early for turkey in my books or, indeed, too late, as the case may here: I found a rather large portion of it during a recent freezer rummage, but cannot recall from whence it hailed - Christmas 2020, Easter 2021 or, dare I say it, an early Christmas we randomly decided to have in November 2020(!). Shame on me for having that little knowledge of what lies deep in cryo in the pits of my chest freezer, but brownie points, if you’ll please, for still putting it to good use! We’re alive and just about kicking - and it tasted lush.
Each year I have a personal competition with myself to top the year before’s amount of turkey I eat. Qualifying criteria include sit-down-meals, sandwiches/baps/wraps/toasties and simple, joyous fridge-side-pickings (dipping freshly shredded clumps in cold gravy and cold bread sauce, followed by a bite of a salty pig in blanket (though in this family we do pork stuffing, in the shape of short fat sausages, wrapped in smoked streaky bacon)).
Sor far, this year, I’ve partaken in quite a few, not all that overly desirable, festive sandwich constructions from some well-known cafes and supermarket chains, but nothing ever quite beats the homemade assemblies. While I’ll wait for fresh leftovers to construct my showstoppers, between Christmas and New Year, I can use these leftovers for something hot. And that something hot, which also totally augmented these frost-bitten leftovers into a kind of happy-making magic, was (Nigella’s) Ed’s Victorious Turkey Hash. Or, rather, it worked its happy-making magic on my frost-bitten leftovers, transforming them into something truly scrumptious.
Nigella’s, or rather Ed’s, Victorious Turkey Hash
Deeply comforting, delicious, gooey with melting parmesan and ready in mere moments. I’ll be making sure to keep stock of all the ingredients required to make a fresh batch with this Christmas’s leftovers. I only had about half the amount of flaked almonds needed, so I added extra crunch with pumpkin seeds - toasting them with the almonds at the beginning.
You can find the recipe for Ed’s Victorious Turkey Hash on p147 of Nigella Christmas and on p52 of Feast.
