CHRISTMAS LEFTOVERS PIE

I don't know about you guys, but here in Kuching, we had the totally trad western Christmas fare. Not on Christmas Eve, or even Christmas Day for that matter, but on Boxing Day night we had 6 good pals over for slow-roasted turkey, two stuffings, semolina-crusted roast potatoes, minted peas, rich gravy using my own spiced chicken stock, cranberry sauce made with frozen and dried cranberries and a mega-festive Pavlova for dessert. Check it out!

Anyway, the next day, a beautiful family of 10 - three generations - came over for leftovers. (I made another Pav for them, plus a bread and butter pudding made from a disappointing store-bought Italian panettone, but which made a spectacular second dessert. The family of 10 arrived bearing lobsters, prawns, roast marinated boneless lamb, salads, wines. So Christmas ended up as two days of eating and entertaining heaven. And still, on the third day we still had leftover turkey, 2 x stuffings, gravy and cranberry sauce. Not one to waste anything, I made a great soup with the turkey carcass, homemade stock, some assorted veggies, barley and potatoes. And for the first time ever, I made a savoury pie using all the aforementioned leftovers. I'm not going to go into the roasting and stuffing of the turkey, the making of the stuffings, the cranberry sauce and gravy. I'm sure you have your own methods of doing Christmas food, so technically speaking, this is less of a recipe and more of an assemblage. But I'll share with you here how to make all your own scrummy leftovers into the best pie ever, which, by the way, three days later, we're still eating! You could do the same with leftover roast chicken, spiced ham, or any other combination of celebratory leftovers. No matter what, it's gonna be delicious if it started out that way on the day.

INGREDIENTS

Pastry

375g plain flour

1 tsp salt

185g unsalted butter, chilled and diced

125ml milk

1 egg, lightly beaten, to use as an egg wash

Filling

leftover turkey, shredded

leftover stuffings (mine were sausage, prune and port and sausage and chestnut.)

leftover gravy which should have jellied in the fridge

leftover cranberry sauce

METHOD

Pastry

Sift the flour and salt into your food processor (or into a large bowl if you're game enough to do this by hand.)

Add the diced chilled butter to the flour mixture and whizz until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. (By hand, rub the butter in with your fingertips until you get the same texture.)

Pour the milk evenly over the mixture and whizz again until it forms a smooth ball on your blade

(or with a light touch, gradually form the pastry into a ball. Don't overwork it.

Wrap your ball of pastry in two layers of cling wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour or even overnight.

Filling

In a large bowl, mix your shredded turkey, stuffings, cold gravy jelly and cranberry sauce together and refrigerate until ready to use.

Peheat oven to 200C.

Remove pastry from fridge and unwrap.

Cut two thirds of the pastry away from the ball, and place on a lightly floured, preferably cold, surface.

Let it rest in room temperature for a few minutes until more malleable and then gently roll out until it's big enough to place in your pie dish with the pastry hanging over the edges of the dish.

Place your beautiful leftovers mixture into the pastry and spread it out over the base. It should look like a mound.

Add a little more flour to your work surface and roll out the last third of pastry.

Gently place the pastry lid on top of your pie.

Using a fork dipped in water or milk, seal the edges of the bottom and top layer of pastry pressing down around the whole perimeter.

Cut away the overlap.

Roll out the leftover pastry to make lovely shapes of your choice to decorate the pie.

Brush the top with the beaten egg.

Place your pie plate on a baking tray and into your oven.

Bake for about 1 hour 15 minutes.

Serve with a crisp salad or maybe some roasted Brussel sprouts.

(If anyone wants the recipes for the turkey, the stuffings, the gravy, the stock, or the cranberry sauce, I can email you separately.)