You guessed it. Few days past Easter, or Thanksgiving, and some of us try to come up with more and more creative ways to use all the leftover ham, turkey, brisket (you name it).
It’s perfectly good meat, but it gets tiresome after a while. We had ham’s steaks with asparagus and local corn the other day, and another dinner with some brisket and sauerkraut. All yummy. But I still had a little bit of meat left, and being the “saving type” I would hate to waste perfectly good food. Yet, I couldn’t get myself to make another dry, turkey breast sandwich (of course, we never have the dark meat leftovers). So, I became creative.
And, we loved, loved our bagel sandwich with this meat spread! Here’s the recipe:
Meat spread
Ingredients:
½ lb combined turkey and brisket meat
4 table spoons of mayonnaise
1 table spoon Dijon mustard
1 table spoon high quality olive oil
1 table spoon hot relish (optional)
1 stick leek, sliced and slowly sautéed
½ small onion, chopped, sautéed
3 cloves of garlic, mashed
Salt and pepper
Handful chopped parsley and oregano fresh herbs
First, I cut all the meat to small cubes, while checking for bones or fat I didn’t want in my spread. Added mayo, mustard and relish, seasoned with salt and pepper and pulse the food processor. If you like it chunkier, just pulse for seconds at the time. If you turn it on running, you’ll have a pate consistency. The spread looked dry (depends how much and what kind of meat you use), so I drizzled the mixture with high quality extra virgin olive oil instead of adding more mayo,.
In a frying pan, on medium heat, I sautéed chopped onion and leek in a little bit of olive oil and butter. When the leek is sautéed slowly, it became such a tasty, caramelized ingredient – so I cooked on low heat for about 20 minutes, until totally soft. Season with salt and set aside to cool.
Chop bunch of fresh herbs based on your taste. I picked parsley and spicy oregano to add some bite to it, from my back yard herbal garden. Added to the processor with the cooked leeks and onion, and pulsed it until smooth. Seasoned with more salt and pepper. Taste it and make sure it’s to your own liking. Adjust the seasoning if required. It was almost perfect to me, but it was still missing something. Oh, garlic! Of course! 3 cloves of garlic smashed and pressed into the mix. I took another taste – and yes, that was it!
We had a delicious lunch and still had more for the next day. This was a good transformation of meat that would be kind of “boring” on its own.
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