Food and Drink mini-series: Tamar Adler on cooking leftovers

This is an audio transcript of the FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘Food and Drink mini-series — Tamar Adler on cooking leftovers’

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Lilah Raptopoulos
Hello FT Weekend listeners. I am here to welcome you to a special mini-series of bonus episodes.

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For the next four weeks as we inch closer to summer, we will be publishing four short conversations on a topic that’s near and dear to my heart: food and wine. For each episode, we’re featuring a different expert. The next one is with world renowned sommelier Andre Mack. He’s gonna tell us exactly how wine has gotten so much cooler and more accessible over the past ten years. But today, I am talking leftovers with the chef and food writer, Tamar Adler. I love leftovers, and Tamar recently published this incredible cookbook called The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers from A-Z. It basically helps you take whatever you already have in your kitchen and then make a second meal out of it, or a third or a fourth meal out of it. The book reads like an encyclopedia, and it’s organised by each type of leftover. And it has over fifteen hundred little recipes. How to finish a bag of wilting spinach, how to finish half a burrito that’s sitting in your fridge. It’s kind of ridiculous, and it’s perfect. And it follows this philosophy that runs through all of Tamar’s work, which is that it’s better to use what you have already than to buy new every time. Her writing and this cookbook have totally changed my pattern of cooking. OK, let’s get into it. This is FT Weekend, the podcast special edition. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos. Enjoy the show.

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Tamar, welcome to FT Weekend. Thank you so much for being here.

Tamar Adler
Thank you for having me.

Lilah Raptopoulos
In your intro to The Everlasting Meal, you wrote, “Great meals barely start at points that all look like beginnings. They usually pick up where something else leaves off.” And so I’ve been thinking about this idea of like a meal that’s everlasting, that it’s like kind of in conversation with the thing that happened before it. And you don’t have to start new every time.

Tamar Adler
Yeah, like it’s building. I mean, we’re, you know, we know that life is like that, right? Like, we don’t start new every day. We are an agglomeration of all of our days and all of our minutes and everything that’s happened to us. And I feel like it’s weird that in the kitchen we act as though that should not be true when that has always been true in the kitchen. A lot of our best known, most loved dishes were created because of this, like saving away and bringing out again and starting with that. And I think it is much easier when you let it be true of the way you eat on a day-to-day basis.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I would love to know the process for you of figuring out a recipe for all of these leftovers. And the cookbook is so much fun. It’s very wild. It’s a . . . 

Tamar Adler
Thank you (Lilah chuckles).

Lilah Raptopoulos
It’s not a normal cookbook like it’s A to Z, and you sort of flip through it and there’s obvious ones like old potatoes or like herb stems. And then there’s like very niche ones like chickpea water is a good egg substitute, which I didn’t know, or like clamshells or stale popcorn (laughs). Yeah, what was the process like?

Tamar Adler
I literally had a spreadsheet for every letter of the alphabet of potential leftovers or leavings, and I would cook my way through it. And some things didn’t make the cut because after going through a whole process of cooking it, I realised they weren’t ever gonna really be a leftover. And then some things didn’t make the cut because they were gross, not gross because they were old, gross because like, I couldn’t figure out a good reuse for them.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I used your cookbook the other day with an old salad, like a dressed salad that I put in the fridge. It was a fattoush salad. And I did what you told me. I put vinegar and some olive oil in there and some garlic and some more herbs. And I used an immersion blender, and I blended it, and I made a salad, salad dressing.

Tamar Adler
Oh, you did (Lilah laughs)? OK. How was it? How was it?

Lilah Raptopoulos
It was good. It was good. It tasted kind of like pesto, and I put it on a new salad. I mean, it kind of is a version of pesto, I guess.

Tamar Adler
Did you leave the pita in there or take it out?

Lilah Raptopoulos
No, I didn’t. And I had some halloumi in the salad that I didn’t . . .

Tamar Adler
OK. OK. Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
It was good. It was good.

Tamar Adler
Salad, salad dressing. I’m so glad.

Lilah Raptopoulos
There is nothing that felt more rewarding to me . . .

Tamar Adler
Oh, my gosh.

Lilah Raptopoulos
(Chuckles) . . . than using an old salad as a dressing on a new salad.

Tamar Adler
Right? Yeah. That’s like . . . Yeah. Yeah. I felt, I feel like I talked about that on the radio recently as the mother and child reunion (Lilah laughs). And I think it counts like that, like the, the chicken and the egg dancing a waltz.

Lilah Raptopoulos
It is.

Tamar Adler
Yeah (Lilah laughs). I do think that’s very satisfying. I’m so glad that you did it. Great. If you have any more of that, you know, green purée, you can use that for other things, like you can put some of it in sour cream as like a little dip or, you know, the world is your oyster.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Tamar, how many times can you use the leftover? Like, when does it start to go gross?

Tamar Adler
You have to trust your senses. I think we have to start doing the, like, three-day thing. I mean, I did say in, I made a rule once in the book, which is that rice can be fried twice. That’s my own personal rule. It’s an aesthetic thing, not like a universal thing (Lilah chuckles), but I have successfully fried rice twice, and then the third time I turned it into a soup. I just have found that like the amount of fat that it takes to like, by the time I’m frying it a third time . . .

Lilah Raptopoulos
It already has so much fat in it.

Tamar Adler
I just want it to be stewy. It’s so flavourful it ends up being a little, like, too intense. But that’s also just me, you know? That might be a different rule for people, but I think it’s really important to not have rules and to just to taste and smell and touch.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. What kind of soup did you make it into?

Tamar Adler
It’s a, it’s in the book, but it’s I make it into like a rice stew. So I’ll make like it’s usually dashi because I often keep instant dashi around, which I’m sure I was like, I don’t know, all kinds of chemicals in it and stuff, but it’s delicious.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Dashi is like a Japanese stock, right?

Tamar Adler
Yes. Dashi also is just kombu and bonito, so it’s like very simple to make. This is like simplifying the already simple, but I will make very simple stock and then pour that into the twice fried rice in a pot and heat it up together, and it’s like delicious rice stew. It’s great.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yum.

Tamar Adler
It’s so good. It’s like the best soup ever.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Tamar, I have to ask like, what is an example of a leftover that you just couldn’t figure out, like you couldn’t reuse?

Tamar Adler
I mean, there were tons of things . . . I really thought I was going to come up with something great to do with a large amount of bacon fat, you know, like when you do have bacon fat, you have like . . . a ton of it.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So much. Yeah.

Tamar Adler
And I didn’t. I still, I mean, you can always strain it and fry in it, just strain it very, very well. But other than that, it was like small amounts. When I tried stuff with large amounts, it was just not delicious.

Lilah Raptopoulos
The other thing that I struggle with, and I’m curious how you think about it, is like sometimes I’ll look in my fridge and I’ll think like, OK, I’m just in an ongoing balancing act or juggling act where I have all this food and it’s going bad at different rates and how do I waste as little of it as I can so I’m not throwing food away? And I’m wondering if there’s like a way to think about our fridges or even a way to think about how we shop for food that helps make that easier.

Tamar Adler
The first thing I would say is buy less.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Buy less. Yeah.

Tamar Adler
I think people like buy such a huge variety of things for totally good reasons, like right to like be healthy and have a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. But I don’t think that we should buy that much. It’s easier for you as a cook and easier on your fridge and your conscience if you actually let inventories run low so that you’re like, oh, I don’t have any rice so I’m gonna use that farro. I don’t have any stock so I’m gonna use the farro liquid.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

Tamar Adler
You know, I don’t have any sauce so I’m gonna use the chicken soup that I made with the farro liquid, you know, to start a pasta sauce. And that’s how invention happens. I don’t even think you have to, like, necessarily invent anything. You can certainly use this book or a bazillion other books, but I think it’s much harder when you have these things that you always buy, just don’t buy them. I think salad greens are a great example. I would if you find them often going bad, don’t buy them. And then when you really want a salad, make a salad out of what you have in your house or get greens then.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Interesting. Yeah. You’re changing (chuckles) . . . I’m thinking about how full my cabinets are.

Tamar Adler
Yeah. Run, run them low.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Yeah. I’m just really curious because you’re such a great writer, and you’ve been sort of a writer and a chef through your career, both. Can you tell me a little bit about like how you move between those two sides of your brain? Like, what is your relationship with writing versus cooking?

Tamar Adler
Cooking always feels like a physical thing to me. I’m just like doing, and I’m making decisions in the moment, and I’m fully present and, you know, like when people talk about flow, I think that’s how cooking feels. Very, very absorbing. Every now and again writing can feel like that too. But, you know, it’s, it’s an intellectual process for me. Every time I’ve done one and not the other, I’ve been kind of miserable. When I’m just working in publishing or writing, I feel like, why do I even have a body if I’m just gonna be tapping at keys? And when I was just a cook, I felt like, what do I even have this brain for? So there’s a, there’s a degree to which they sort of share the space where, you know, interest and happiness and curiosity coexist. But definitely one is more like a more physical practice and one is a more intellectual practice.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, that’s really interesting. So, OK, Tamar, when I saw you speak a few weeks ago, we played this game, and it was called the Leftover Game.

Tamar Adler
That’s what I’ve been calling it. Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
(Laughs) And I loved it. And basically people in the audience gave you leftovers and then you told us what we could do with it. So I went on Instagram, and I asked our listeners if they had any leftovers that they were really struggling with. And do you mind if I throw a few . . . 

Tamar Adler
Oh my gosh. Of course, go ahead. Go ahead.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. All right, one is Aaron Brown, who lives in Tunis. She says already cooked pasta, it just gets sad (chuckles).

Tamar Adler
Oh, amazing. I love that one.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And I agree. That also gets hard.

Tamar Adler
Yeah, hard and sad. The best thing to do is make a leftover pasta frittata. It is the most delicious thing in the world. It’s so easy. Take the cold, sad pasta, beat three or four eggs and season them and then combine the two. Mix it all in. Heat a pan. Put in a good deal of olive oil. Pour in the egg mixture. As soon as it’s set on the bottom, put it in the oven for about 10 minutes and then it’s so delicious. Any toss . . . Anything. So good.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. Amazing. Great. Matteo from London says, “When I boil too much rice and then I have some of that left and then I have some random veggies in the fridge, it sounds very easy to just combine the two, but it’s so boring.”

Tamar Adler
Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Do you have any advice for making that exciting?

Tamar Adler
Yes. Matteo, I think. I think it’s time for chilli crisp and, and, and frying the rice. I would, first of all, I would do a hot pan and fat. I always say that. I think that I do to help myself with the fried rice is that I often cut up a bunch of ginger and a bunch of garlic and sometimes even some scallion and combine it all together and freeze it.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh good idea.

Tamar Adler
So when I want to make, or like, I could do that in ice cubes, or you could just do a little, a little bag and then like chisel off a little bit. So then heat a hot pan, you can add a little bit of that straight from the freezer and you have the super flavourful beginning. Then you add your leftover rice, let it get all fried and crispy. Then you add your vegetables and then you add your chilli crisp.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right? Yum.

Tamar Adler
Yum. Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Laura Hope is a friend of mine. Laura Hope from DC. She says leftover fish, mostly because I feel like it gets fishier and then I don’t want it. Also, reheating fish is a crime to those who can smell.

Tamar Adler
I couldn’t agree more. I like to flake it immediately, so before I put it away, flake it and add a bunch of olive oil and maybe some whole or lightly crushed whole spices. So it’s, first of all, it’s now protected from any further oxygen. It’s not going to go fishy. It’s also marinating in oil and becoming super delicious. And then the next day you can toss pasta with it. You don’t have to heat it up again. Let it come to room temperature, toss it with pasta and herbs. It’s great. Or you can combine it with any dairy like cream cheese and use that as a dip or a spread. Or you can just put it on like toasted peasant bread with, you know, rub with a clove of garlic and you just have like, think of it then as like olive oil-packed tuna.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. Right. Yum. Yum.

Tamar Adler
Homemade. Yeah. Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. Last one is, this one’s mine. I had a leftover deli sandwich (laughs).

Tamar Adler
Amazing.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And I didn’t, I looked at it and I thought, I don’t know, not today.

Tamar Adler
I have a recipe. I think it’s called cheesy savoury bread pudding. And I kind of want to look it up, but I . . .

Lilah Raptopoulos
Well. OK. We’re both looking through it . . . 

Tamar Adler
Cheesy . . . Yes! Page 368 . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. Page 368.

Tamar Adler
Cheesy savoury bread pudding.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Cheesy, savoury bread pudding. That sounds actually amazing. Wow. OK. So this is, this asks for, this bread pudding recipe asks for eight cups of cubed sandwiches, two eggs, some liquid like stock or milk or cream and sliced celery and leak or onion and salt. And you just make it like a bread pudding?

Tamar Adler
Yeah. So good. It’s so good.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Wow. You just take a deli sandwich and make, make a bread pudding out of it.

Tamar Adler
Of course you can. So you’re, you’re not gonna have, if you have like half a sandwich, you’ll probably have less than eight cups of cubed sandwiches. Just make it smaller and do it in a small gratin dish.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Wow (Tamar laughs). That’s amazing. Tamar, this was such a delight. I really appreciate it.

Tamar Adler
Thank you so much.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s the show. Thank you for listening to FT Weekend, the podcast from the Financial Times. This is the first of our special mini-series about food and drink. I have dropped links to everything mentioned today in our show notes as well as a special discount to a subscription to the FT. I’ve also shared a piece that Tamar recently wrote for the FT Weekend Magazine of her dream dinner party. It’s really good.

We would love to hear what you think as always. You can email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. You can say hi on social media. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and I’m on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap. I spent most of my social media time talking to you guys on Instagram. Next week, we have sommelier Andre Mack on the show. I visited him at one of his restaurants here in New York, and he had incredible advice about how to taste. This episode was produced by Zach St Louis, executive produced by Topher Forhecz and sound engineered by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco, with original music by Metaphor Music. Have a wonderful week, and we’ll find each other again this weekend.

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