If deploying a use-it-up approach while cooking outside your usual repertoire is daunting, Irene Li notes that salads, soups and other \u201crecipes that have a lot of different textures and flavours, tend to be good places to do substitutions. \u2026 Like, for a pasta salad you could use a different cheese. You could use a different crunchy vegetable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subbing similar ingredients will keep your results closer to the original, but if your goal is using up what you have, don\u2019t be afraid to veer off-script. Irene Li points out that dishes that don\u2019t come out as planned can still taste great or at least help develop your skills. In fact, that\u2019s how many of these dishes came to be.<\/p>\n
We can trace a lot of them to a need to work with whatever was available. Others are simply great at corralling disparate ingredients into a unified meal. Keep reading for a world tour of examples of these varied and adaptable recipes. (Disclaimer: Many more dishes fit the bill, so consider this a sample platter, and share your own go-tos in the comments.)<\/p>\n
1. Pancakes<\/p>\n
Pancakes, patties, fritters and frittatas are all handy vehicles for jamming together a bunch of ingredients and letting them sizzle into mouth-watering roundish delights. Take okonomiyaki, a Japanese pancake whose name translates to \u201cas you like it, grilled\u201d because that\u2019s exactly how versatile it is. A cabbage-loaded batter carries okonomiyaki, but you can toss extras into the mixing bowl, or pile goodies atop the finished pancake, which is sometimes also called \u201cJapanese frittata\u201d or \u201cJapanese pizza\u201d. For still more flexibility, look to jeon, the family of savoury Korean pancakes that can absorb kimchi, as well as fresh or frozen vegetables, seafood, meat and tofu.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere on the sizzle-and-flip spectrum, there\u2019s the highly adaptable Venezuelan arepa. Made in minutes in the skillet with only precooked cornmeal, water and salt, the corn cake\u2019s fate is to be sliced partway, then stuffed with whatever appeals. Gabriela Febres, the founder of Arepa Zone, which slings arepas across the Washington region, says the flexibility starts with the dough. Some people mix in ingredients such as plantains, cheese and beets. When it comes to fillings, her favourite is tuna with various vegetables, cilantro and a hint of mayo. But, she says, if you start with a protein and cheese, then look to avocado or tomato, it\u2019s hard to go wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can make a ton of arepas and have a variety of fillings, and everyone around the table might make theirs a bit different,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
2. Soups and stews<\/p>\n
Ribollita. Photon \/ Rey Lopez; food styling by Lisa Cherkasky, The Washington Post<\/p>\n
The Tuscan stew ribollita is so invested in working with your leftovers and extras that its name means \u201creboiled\u201d. You\u2019ll definitely need vegetables, beans and bread (stale bread is on theme, but fresh works), as well as herbs that evoke Tuscany, such as rosemary and oregano. Many recipes call for fresh herbs and hearty greens, but this is ultimately a choose-your-own-adventure soup.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re staring down a mix of potatoes, carrots and other produce pulled from the earth, give them a simmer in Root Vegetable Maf\u00e9. In his cookbook, Simply West African, Senegalese chef Pierre Thiam describes maf\u00e9, a blend of peanut butter, tomato, onion and other ingredients, as a regional \u201cmother sauce\u201d. The stew has room for other vegetables and meat, too.<\/p>\n
Of course, soup doesn\u2019t need to be hot. Classic versions of gazpacho, Spain\u2019s chilled soup, feature tomatoes, cucumber and bell peppers, but Washington chef, restaurateur and humanitarian Jos\u00e9 Andr\u00e9s is known to emphasise the soup\u2019s adaptability with a simple question: \u201cWill it gazpacho?\u201d Whether it\u2019s peaches, watermelon or cauliflower, a spin through a blender and thoughtful seasoning and toppings might put an overambitious farmers market haul to good use.<\/p>\n
Margaret Li offers this tip for gazpacho improv: \u201cIt\u2019s not just blended salsa with a splash of olive oil. \u2026 You need more olive oil than you think.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. Dumplings and hand pies<\/p>\n
Ukrainian Pierogi. Photo \/ Scott Suchman; food styling by Lisa Cherkasky, The Washington Post<\/p>\n
Including such dishes as pillowy Ukrainian pierogi and the crispy half-moons of Korean Goon Mandu, every corner of the world seems to have devised delicious ways to serve nearly anything wrapped in dough.<\/p>\n
\u201cFolding something into a little parcel, it\u2019s like a little present,\u201d says Irene Li, who co-founded Boston-based Mei Mei Dumplings and is working on a Chinese-style dumpling cookbook with her sister. \u201cI feel that\u2019s such a home-cooking tradition, making these precious little things out of not very much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dough-wrapped preparations can be labour-intensive, but, Irene Li points out, there\u2019s no shame in shortcuts such as store-bought dumpling or wonton wrappers, puff pastry or empanada dough. Even store-bought pie dough can work wonders, as in Chicken and Black Bean Hand Pies.<\/p>\n
For a no-recipe dumpling filling, Margaret Li suggests striving for a texture \u201cthat\u2019s scoopable and won\u2019t leak or crumble apart\u201d. A raw egg can rescue a filling that won\u2019t hold together, and Irene Li also advises care with any hard or pointy ingredients that might puncture the dough. Finely chopping and cooking firm vegetables helps.<\/p>\n
4. Bread and tortilla revival<\/p>\n
To make Mexican chilaquiles, you drop stale tortilla chips or crisped tortillas into a simmering sauce, then serve with toppings such as onion, coriander, beans, chicken, queso fresco and beyond. The name of a similar dish, migas, literally means \u201ccrumbs,\u201d and while Tex-Mex preparations typically call for stale chips or tortillas scrambled with eggs, Spanish versions revive stale bread. (If you prefer to preserve the crunchy texture, you can also simply sprinkle the tortilla chip pieces over the top of your migas.)<\/p>\n
Also consider panzanella, the Italian salad that reinvents stale bread with heat, olive oil and the fresh tomato juices it soaks up in the bowl. Or try fattoush, the Middle Eastern salad that does similar work with pita, and often includes spices such as sumac. Both are endlessly riffable.<\/p>\n
5. Rice-based<\/p>\n
Koshary. Photo \/ Peggy Cormary; food styling by Carolyn Robb, The Washington Post<\/p>\n
Fried rice famously revives leftover rice, studding it with vegetables, eggs and other fridge odds and ends. But for a master class in applying what you\u2019ve got to a traditional recipe, consider its Peruvian cousin, Arroz Chaufa. Developed by Chinese immigrants who improvised a taste of home amid rough conditions in the 19th century, arroz chaufa is now an established Peruvian dish. It\u2019s true to the original\u2019s soy sauce and egg, but leaves much up for grabs. Consider using quinoa instead of rice, or mixing in hot dogs.<\/p>\n
The many spellings of kichidi (kichadi or kitchari, for starters) hint at the endless variations of this rice, legume and vegetable comfort food you\u2019ll find across South Asia. You\u2019ll also find many variations across your kitchen, depending on exactly which pantry staples and produce get your attention at dinner. The dish may have evolved into Egypt\u2019s famous koshary, which includes pasta in addition to rice and lentils, and provides an oniony, sauce-drenched canvas on to which you can substitute what you have for the various categories of ingredients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If deploying a use-it-up approach while cooking outside your usual repertoire is daunting, Irene Li notes that salads,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[192,138,3588,2544,42232,564,11600,305,13458,5812,130,111,139,69,42233,16455,42231,24359,61,25361,1955,6923],"class_list":["post-48623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-are","tag-business","tag-cut","tag-dishes","tag-dumplings","tag-food","tag-globally","tag-have","tag-inspired","tag-make","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pancakes","tag-rice","tag-tasty","tag-these","tag-to","tag-waste","tag-ways","tag-what"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}