Leftover Chicken Recipes and How to Use Leftovers
Looking for leftover chicken recipes? How to use leftovers? Taking stock of your fridge? Recycling leftovers gives the home cook a chance to be - well, er - "creative." Furthermore, whatever works for leftover chicken will even work for Thanksgiving turkey leftovers. Sometimes, when I'm taking stock of my fridge, I wonder where all the "first-overs" went. By the way, check out this page about leftover salmon recipes. Since today's topic is leftover chicken recipes , it is meaningless to put up a list of ingredients when you're dealing with leftovers because using what you have available is the whole point. All the recipes you've prepared before, the reading you've done or the suggestions from your Mom come to bear on deciding what goes with what. Judgment will tell you that basil goes with tomato, oregano means Italian, rice loves saffron and turmeric, what "binder" might be best to hold things together - whether it is flour or cornstarch based or even a vegetable puree. So on with leftover chicken recipes. Last night I found myself with some left over chicken and a hodgepodge of produce that was going to go bad if I didn't do something with it quickly. In this case it was two pieces of chicken breast, three bell peppers, and an entire bunch of celery. Whenever I buy bell peppers, I buy one of each color because they make the final dish so much more attractive. I would only use half of that celery because to try to use it all would have been disproportionate. With two people for dinner it was just the right amount with enough left over for lunch. One of my standard leftover dishes is Pasta Primavera. Often, I would cut the chicken into cubes about 1 inch on the side but tonight I would just leave them whole because they had a good seasoning from a marinade previously. Since they were already cooked, I would wait until the last second to add them to the dish - they didn't need anymore cooking. I put some water to boil in a pot with a little salt and examined the items I was trying to use up which were: three bell peppers -- one red, one green and one yellow -- and an entire bunch of celery that was supposed to have gone into a mirepoix but never made it. There was also a bunch of green onions. I did a coarse chop making the vegetables about a half an inch by 1 inch. I like to make Pasta Primavera in a wok so I sprayed it with some Pam and added a dribble (about 1 tablespoon) of olive oil around the top of the wok so it would run down into the center. For good results, the pan should become good and hot before you put anything into it - as they do it stirfries. I threw in the celery and grabbed some seasonings: cumin, parsley and half a dozen cloves of garlic. I pushed the celery aside and the garlic for it burns easily (way up the side of the wok) to make a well in the middle and added the bell peppers. Another dribble of olive oil. May I digress? If you have the choice, you really want to have a gas range. Fast, hot cooking is not going to work on an electric range. I don't believe I've ever seen a cooking show where electric was used and there's a reason. The same thing goes for one of those induction ranges whose only advantage is that it has, flat surface to clean up later. By now the water was boiling and I threw in some spaghetti - back to the fixings. I decided that some sort of binding sauce was in order but I didn't have any chicken broth or stock (which is rare) so I put about 2 cups of water to boil in a soup pot and found a couple of chicken cubes and threw that in. I found some fresh ginger, peeled it, sliced it, and in it went. Remember that bouillon cubes contain a lot of salt so taste as you go. I encouraged them with the back of a spoon to fragment with some pepper flakes to give it a little bite. It took about two tablespoons of cornstarch and whisked it in bringing the entire thing to a near boil and pulled it off the heat. From a Chinese cooking class I took a long time ago, I learned that in general, it's better to keep all the vegetables about the same size for even cooking and for appearance. In general, everything should be bite-size. Since vegetables usually have about the same water content they are going to cook at about the same rate. The celery takes a tad longer so add that in first. I could have also added carrots but I would have sliced those to look like coins because carrots are a little hard and should be the first veggie in the pan. Leftover broccoli would be another good thing to toss in there at the last second. If you plan to add any already cooked vegetables don't add them until you are ready to eat - they also don't need any more cooking. Tomatoes? Cut them into wedges but don't put them in until you are practically taking the dish to the table. If you don't have anything else, and suspect your Primavera will be boring, look at what you have in jars in your refrigerator. Artichoke hearts packed in olive oil make a great addition to Primavera as do olives - make sure they don't have any pitso or dinner will be late! Have two gherkins left over? Throw those in. Some pepperoncini? That, too. Spinach? Throw in handfuls - I'm always shocked by how it shrinks. Now here's a good chance to deal with leftover lettuce. Coarsely chop and throw that in - yes, it works. Later on, we'll talk even about lettuce soup so come back when we get around to that exotic topic. Beansprouts are great in this dish but they are so delicate that they require only a minute to cook. Cabbage can be used up (coarsely chop) and if you have some green beans from last night, add those sliced on the diagonal in 1" pieces. As for brussels sprouts or cauliflour, I've tried it and wouldn't advise it. They take over when cooked in soups and stews. I put the chicken in the microwave just to get it hot and no longer. I drained the spaghetti and gave it a quick rinse to get the gluten off which makes it sticky. Use hot tap water so you don't have to reheat the spaghetti. Then I dumped the drained spaghetti into the cornstarch mixture and stirred. Now the only thing to do was to combine and adjust the seasonings. In cooking, layering is important, so I should probably mention that at each step I would add a pinch of salt if needed and some freshly cracked pepper. Okay. Now put the spaghetti mixture into the wok over high heat for 30 seconds, pull off, and combine with the veggies using tongs. It seemed a and little dry to me so I added a splash of sherry and to make the flavors more complex, and I also squeezed the juice of lime over it. Then all that's left is to plate it and call everyone for dinner. Above is a picture typical of leftover chicken recipes. I should mention that it took about half an hour, fifteen minutes of which I was watching the news and waiting on the spaghetti. I chopped the remaining celery after dinner, nuked it without adding water till the color changed slightly, and threw it in a baggie to use up tomorrow. *This "recipe" for leftover chicken would work just as well with cubed ham or turkey but leftover chicken is what we've usually got except around the holidays, isn't it? We keep experimenting with leftovers - chicken recipes, salmon, beef and so on - so visit often. Lots of leftover salad that you put dressing on the night before? Believe it or not, even if it looks a little wilted, you can drain it and make those the vegetables you use for this Primavera. You won't even need to add many herbs or spices because, guess what? They're already "married" to the veggies in a "marinade." Don't forget to pick out those soggy croutons! If the salad is more than one day old, pitch it. Recap: With this "recipe" we have used up leftover chicken, celery, bell peppers, green onions, spinach, lettuce, green beans and ginger - and maybe even a salad from last night. Don't you feel good about your husbandry? We will be adding more leftover chicken recipes as the kitchen witch muse permits.
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