Cold gravy and McBubble

Cold turkey, bubble and squeak and cold gravy

It’s brown, it’s cold, it’s slithery and at one time my family used to threaten to leave the room if I ate it. You can’t beat a good solid dollop of cold turkey gravy with your leftover roast in the days after Christmas.

For me it’s the leftovers which make Christmas. The dripping, eaten on hot toast for breakfast, has been particularly good. There was plenty of rich jelly essence although the fat was a bit soft. I basted the bird in duck fat and must have poured a little too much of the juices which leached onto the carving tray into the dripping bowl.

My comments on the delight of toast and dripping, or bread and scrape, appeared in an earlier post here http://wp.me/p5wFIX-4Q

Everybody makes bubble and squeak. It’s the English version of Irish colcannon or Scottish rumbledethumps (swedes with potato). The core ingredients are potatoes, onion and greens. I suspect it’s bubble and squeak everywhere in Britain on Boxing Day because all the leftover vegetables go into it. I had potatoes, onions, carrots and parsnips, all roasted, in mine and because we had people round to tea boiled up more potatoes, parsnips, sprouts and added celery with some swede, a sort of nod to the Scots, so it was McBubble for us.

I fry it up in a big pan until crusted underneath, stir that in and repeat. The more crozzly bits the better. And season it strongly, not forgetting the garlic. You can make it into little patties but that’s a bit twee for Boxing Day. Incidentally, I’ve fried it with shredded leftover lettuce and it works.

I thought the name bubble and squeak came from the noise made by the greens when frying but I read the term originally applied to beef with cabbage being fried up together (at least from 1785). It’s not the only case of the same name being given to different dishes.

I have found no one who shares my love of cold gravy. Like the dripping it has to be full of meat juices and set gently, not stiff. And, of course, you can always re-heat it if you need to. But there’s something about the texture, particularly when mingled with vinegar from the pickles which is simply irresistible.

This is my 100th post since I started at the beginning of the year. The blog has had well over 13,000 hits. The reviews have got the most response. It’s when things get geeky, such as the origins and continued manufacture of polony in South Yorkshire, that interest tails off! But there is so much to write about food (and drink) that I feel I’ve only scratched the surface.

And if you really are interested in the story of Harry Potter and the Last Polony it’s here http://wp.me/p5wFIX-52

Wobbly cold jellied gravy

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