This is a pie, casserole, whatever you want to call it — it's the thing that I make
with my Thanksgiving leftovers. It's easy, it's cheap, it feeds a ton of people, and
a ton of different things can go in it — whatever you have. But you'll probably start with some
leftover meat. Could be chicken, but here's my turkey. I don't stress about carving every
last bit off of my turkey, because after dinner I can just use my fingers to tear out every
hard to access scrap of meat. Ooo, there's the oyster. I think turkey wings are really
stingy and sinewy, so I don't even carve them off. I just use my fingers to kinda slide
the edible meat off of the grossness, which is real easy. There's some leftover breast
slices. So that's maybe 8 or 10 cups of leftover meat? In the fridge it goes.
You'll need mashed potatoes to make this. You could use leftover mash, but you need
a lot, so either you need to make extra mash in anticipation of the pie, or just start
from scratch, which is what I'm doing. I'm peeling a five-pound sack of Yukon Gold potatoes.
Yellow-skinned varieties generally have the ideal starch composition for mash. They'll
whip up smooth, but they won't get gluey. I'm just cutting them up into smaller pieces
so they'll cook quickly and evenly. Into the boiling water they go. Some people say you
have to salt the water. That makes no sense at all. This is going to be a homogenous mixture
at the end. The salt can go in at any time, and if you wait to the end, you can taste
to make sure you like the amount.
After maybe 15 minutes, you can feel they're soft enough as to be easily crushed. Drain
them off, and into the still hot pot goes 8 ounces — that's two sticks — of butter,
and I like European-style butter for mash. It's slightly fermented — it's got that
cheesy, yogurty note to it that I think really livens up mash a lot. Doesn't have to be fully
melted, because we're gonna throw several pounds of piping-hot potatoes on it. That'll
melt her for sure; also the camera.
So I make mash lots of ways — sometimes I use garlic, sometimes I use a mixture of
different potatoes, sometime I leave the skins on. This is my kinda standard holiday mash
which is peeled and whipped smooth. That's how my mom made it, growing up, and like I
said, the yellow potatoes can take it. They don't turn into glue, the way more waxy potatoes
would. I usually just whip the potatoes with the butter, then I can see how much more moisture
it needs. Little bit of milk, and I'll start with a couple of big pinches of salt. Mix
that in. Like most starchy things, you want the texture in the pan to be a little looser
than what you desire on the plate, because it's gonna thicken as it cools.
Little more milk in, now I can have a taste. Little more salt, lots of pepper, and there
we go, that is very tasty.
This is how I roast vegetables for Thanksgiving, and I would normally do a ton and then use
the leftovers for the pie, but right now I'm just making enough to demo the pie.
Little bag of Brussels sprouts. If you start by trimming off the woody stem, any decaying
outer leaves will generally just fall off naturally, then I just cut them in half — halving
them helps them to brown a lot better. Peel a bag of carrots, and I like to just roast
those whole. I want to keep the piles separate, though, because the sprouts will probably
be done before the carrots.
A little melted butter on top, salt and pepper, toss everything around. In the oven it goes,
400 F or honestly whatever temperature I'm roasting the turkey at, usually. Give them
a little toss for more even browning. Indeed, the sprouts are tender before the carrots,
so I'll take those off. Just waiting until the carrots can be pierced with a fork, but
they still put up a little bit of a fight. I don't like mushy carrots.
Two other things I'd do right before I make the pie. These are not leftovers. I've got
a little bunch of spring onions. Cut off the root ends and then peel off any any slimy
outer layers before chopping those up. Those will kinda freshen up the pie and intensify
the flavor.
And then I'll grate up an 8 ounce block of sharp cheddar cheese. You could use more cheese.
But I like to use it as a subtle flavoring and binding agent. I don't want my pie to
be overtly cheesy.
Alrighty, time to build the pie. I've got this big 6 or 7 quart enameled cast iron lasagna
pan. The wider the pan you've got, the more surface area you're gonna have and therefore
more browning. A roasting tray would be good too.
You could absolutely start this with a butter and flour roux, then mix in your liquid, bring
it to a boil, stir in the filling ingredients, and there you go. But I'm gonna show you a
lighter and much lazier way of thickening and building this.
I'll throw my turkey onto a cutting board and just run my knife through it a few times
to make sure that everything is bite size, then throw it into the empty, cold pan. Brussels
sprouts go in, then I'll cut my roast carrots up into bite-size pieces too, in those go.
And then in go the raw spring onions, and for my first liquid, I will do a 12-ounce
bottle of dry hard apple cider, or as the Brits would call it, cider. You could use
white wine, or apple juice — maybe just a little bit less juice, so it's not too sweet.
Then just enough milk to submerge everything.
And here comes our light and lazy thickener — Wondra. A lot of people have this around
at Thanksgiving anyway because it's good for gravy. It's in the baking isle at grocery
stores. It's a wheat flour formulation that dissolves directly into liquid. It will not
form lumps, so you don't need to whisk it into a roux or a slurry or anything like that.
Scatter some on to start with, along with a big pinch of salt and some pepper. Then
I'm just gonna bring this to a boil on the stovetop, and mix in more Wondra until I get
the thickness that I want. Like normal flour, it won't fully thicken until you bring it
to a boil, but be careful about having the heat too high, because that can happen.
"Oh god."
Milk expands massively when it comes to a rolling boil, so do medium, medium-high heat.
Just get it to a vigorous simmer, and stir frequently. That helps control the bubbles,
and also you want to be careful about this sauce sticking to the bottom and burning.
I love thickening this way, either with Wondra or with a cornstarch slurry, because there's
no guess-work. No guessing how much roux to make up front, no guessing how much sauce
you'll need to coat the ingredients of your filling before you put them in. Just submerge
everything in liquid, get it bubbling, mix in Wondra until you like the texture. There
is a downside though, which is that sauces thickened with this stuff tend to look a little
bit grainy. You'll see it more in the finished product. It's purely cosmetic — the sauce
tastes smooth, but it doesn't look super nice, which is one reason why everybody doesn't
just do this all the time.
And that is still not as thick as I want it, but I'll turn the heat off now, because it's
gonna thicken as it cools, and we're gonna put in some cheese once it stops boiling.
That cheese is gonna thicken things up — gotta account for that.
Here's our mashed potatoes, and there's two last-minute alterations that'll make this
a great pie topping. The first is put some egg yokes in — I'm going with four. The
yokes not only give a delicious, rich flavor — they also help the mash brown in the oven
and help it set up firm, more like a biscuit or a dumpling after it's baked. And then I'll
also put in a handful of my cheese, for all of the same reasons.
Now that the filling has cooled down a bit, I'll throw in one or two cups of frozen peas,
straight out of the freezer. You do this, that means you delay their cooking, and that
ensures that they'll still be reasonably green by the time you eat. Rest of my cheese goes
in. If we did this when the sauce was still boiling, it would not melt smooth. It would
split and go gritty. Now I can taste this for seasoning. Needs more salt and pepper,
and some herbs. I'll go with the classic Thanksgiving herbs of dried sage and thyme.
Now, if you wanted to spread the potatoes on in a smooth, even layer, edge-to-edge over
this filling, you would need to chill this filling before topping it. You would need
it to set up firm. I have no time for that and luckily I don't care. I'm just gonna drop
big blobs of my mash onto the filling like giant dumplings. They're gonna sink in a little
bit, and you're not gonna be able to smooth them out — the filling is too liquid, it
would be like sloshing a washcloth around in a bath. I don't care, I think this is gonna
look and taste just great as is.
In the oven it goes at 400 F, and do yourself a favor and stick a baking sheet or a piece
of foil under there, because that pie is gonna boil over, I guarantee it. I would bake that
until you can see the sauce bubbling, 15 or 20 minutes, then I would turn on the broiler
and just brown the the topping to my satisfaction. Watch it like a hawk — it'll only take a
few minutes and it could burn easy. And there we go. I'm sorry, but is that not a thing
of beauty? So much better than a sad little turkey sandwich from the fridge.
It's the kind of thing that I personally would prefer once it has thoroughly cooled — half
an hour or even an hour. When it's just warm, it'll hold together better when you scoop
it out. There you, can see that kinda grainy appearance that Wondra gives to sauces, especially
light-colored sauces. It's purely cosmetic, but if it bothers you, thicken with a roux
instead. That is just an insanely hearty meal. It'll stay warm for a long time and it'll
feed all the people you still have milling in and out of your house at the holidays.
But don't do it exactly as I did it. Use whatever leftovers you actually have. It's leftovers
pie. Don't overthink it.