For those of you still struggling under mountains of leftover turkey (or indeed any meat) I bring salvation. Yesterday I used all our remaining meat to make a large meat loaf (or maybe it’s terrine). You can put almost anything in this as long as it is cookable; so maybe not lettuce, cucumber, salted peanuts or pickles, but pretty much everything else is fair game including olives and cranberry sauce. This is roughly what I did …

Christmas Leftover Meat Loaf
(aka Kitchen Sink Terrine)

You will need:
A quantity of cooked meat; it can be turkey, beef, sausage, bacon, ham — whatever mix you have. Scraps are fine; just remove the bones and gristle.
Some butter and/or olive oil
An egg or two
Some stock and/or a glass of port or brandy
Some garlic
Some mushrooms if available
A good couple of pinches of dried herbs
Salt & pepper
Any other cooked veg, including potatoes
A couple of handfuls of breadcrumbs
Cooked stuffing is fine too

What you do:
Pre-heat the over to about 180C, with the fan if it has one.
Reduce the bread to breadcrumbs (quickest in the food processor)
Finely chop the onion, garlic, mushrooms (and any other raw veg) and sweat it in a frying pan with some butter/oil until the onion is soft and translucent.
Finely chop all the meat, stuffing and cooked veg and mix it together with the herbs, onion mix and breadcrumbs.
Lightly beat the egg(s) and add them along with the stock/liquor and a drizzle of oil. Mix well. It needs to be wetish so it binds together but not soggy.
Tip the mix into a large casserole or cake tin which has been well buttered. Firm it down well.
Put on the lid, or cover with foil, and put in the oven until done (probably 45-75 minutes; raw meat may take a bit longer). If you can be bothered (I never can) you may get a better result using a bain marie.
You can test if it is done by inserting a knife in the middle, leave it there for 5 seconds and if it is scalding when removed the loaf should be done. Do not over cook it or it gets dry.
Remove from the oven and, unless eating it hot, if possible press the loaf with a heavy weight while it cools.
Eat either hot or cold with crusty bread and salad.

Notes:
You can also use raw meat but you’ll probably want to either mince it, or pre-cook it.
If you want to make it look pretty you can put a layer of meat slices or hard-boiled egg in the middle, or line the tin with bacon rashers, or decorate the top with juniper berries and bay leaves.

I’m recovering slowly from this blasted UTI, but still not entirely out of the woods. But recovered enough to cook an experimental meal.

Special Roast Lamb
[This would also work brilliantly with pork.]

No list of ingredients, you can work that out from what I write!

We had a spare leg of lamb (the way you do!) and want the ffeezer space for Christmas. This is what I did — how you do it doesn’t matter as long as the meat remains in a single piece as you’ll be rolling it up later. The joint was about 2Kg before being boned.

I carefully cut down to the bone and worked a sharp boning knife around all the bones leaving a large flat piece of lamb. Trim off any excess fat and sinews. Do not throw the bones, fat etc. away!

Finely chop a couple of cloves of garlic and a small onion (red for preference). Mix with a small packet of stuffing mix, plus salt, pepper and mixed herbs as desired, and add hot water as instructed on the packet. Leave to cool for a few minutes.

At this stage a second pair of hands will come in useful. Put the stuffing on the flattened lamb and roll it up as best you can. Yes that’s right, it will fall apart, which is why you need that second pair of hands to hold it together during the next step.

Now wrap some Parma ham round the lamb and tie it with string to stop it falling apart. The Parma ham helps hold the lamb together, protects it from drying and adds a nice edge to the meat.

If you bone the lamb well this is what it should end up looking like,
only wrapped with Parma ham. I ain’t that good!
Place in a roasting tin and drizzle some olive oil over.

Cover with foil and cook in the oven at about 180C with fan assist (200C if no fan) for about 70-90 minutes. Any extra stuffing can also be popped in the oven.

When done leave to rest for 10 minutes, then serve in slices accompanied by jacket or roast potatoes and veg of your choice (we had steamed spinach), plus if desired some mushroom sauce.

— ooOoo —
Lamb Stock
Remember all those bones an trimmings? Well you can make some super lamb stock for risotto etc.
Take a casserole (cast iron is best) and into it throw a roughly chopped onion, a few cloves of garlic and whatever other veg you need to use up (I used a rather tired fennel) also roughly chopped. Sweat this with a little olive oil on the hob, for a few minutes. Then add all the lamb trimmings & bones, seasoning and some mixed herbs. Continue cooking for a few more minutes. Now add some white wine (or wine and water) to just cover the lamb/veg mix and pop in a low oven for a couple of hours. You should end up with some clean bones and a stock. Take out the bones and any remaining lumps of fat etc.; you might also want to skim the fat off the top. Et voilà … you have some lovely rich lamb stock just ready for soup or risotto.