Take your Christmas dinner leftovers to the next level with this delicious turkey stew recipe from Jamie Oliver which is ‘super-easy’ to make and only takes an hour
If you still have half a turkey in your fridge, this is your sign to do something with it.
We all know the feeling: you’ve had a delicious Christmas dinner, several turkey sandwiches, and maybe even a few plates of cold meat, chips and pickles, but you’ve still got so much meat left to use up. It seems like the most popular way to get rid of leftover turkey is to throw it into a curry, and while this is delicious, it can get a bit boring if you do it every year.
So if you feel like mixing things up this year, why not try something different? A post on Reddit calling for inspiration on what to do with leftover turkey garnered multiple replies from people recommending tasty dishes like tacos, pies, and even salads. But one of the most popular recommendations was the humble stew.
And if stew sounds like exactly what you’re after during this post-Christmas slump, then there’s even more good news – Jamie Oliver has the perfect recipe for leftover stew with homemade dumplings – and it takes just over an hour to make.
The recipe is included in Jamie’s Christmas Cookbook, as he said of the scrumptious offering: “This is a super-easy, old-school dish that uses leftover turkey or chicken in a brilliant way. As a kid, I made it with dumplings, but when I was in the US, they would top stews with these lovely biscuits, so this is my hybrid of the two.”
Ingredients
For the dumplings:
- 2 rashers of higher-welfare smoked streaky bacon
- 2 small leeks
- Olive oil
- 125g self-raising flour
- 25g maize flour or polenta
- 30g unsalted butter (cold)
- 125ml buttermilk
- 1 large free-range egg
For the stew:
- 3 onions
- 3 sticks of celery
- 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
- 3 sprigs of fresh thyme
- 3 fresh bay leaves
- 2 teaspoons English mustard
- 2 tablespoons plain flour
- 1.5 litres organic veg stock
- 150g leftover stuffing
- 500g leftover cooked free-range turkey or chicken meat
Method
To begin, the culinary mastermind chops up bacon and adds it into a pan on medium heat, before finely slicing the leaks. Cook it for 15 minutes or until the leaks are “soft and sweet”, then remove from the pan and leave to cool.
Next, Jamie begins on the stew by peeling onions and trimming celery. These can then be placed in a wide casserole pan on a medium heat. He then adds in the herb sprigs and bay leaves, then cooks for 15 minutes or until “soft but not coloured”. After it’s time to add the mustard and flour for two minutes, followed by the stock Jamie stirs to make into a “nice thick sauce”.
Jamie then crumbles the leftover stuffing into the dish and switches off the heat. At this point, he removes the herbs and the bay leaves, adds in the turkey meat, and seasons to taste. He also preheats his oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6.
Turning back to his dumplings, Jamie next adds the flour to a large bowl, dices and throws in the butter, then uses his fingers to turn the mixture into a crumb-like consistency. After he makes a well in the middle, adds in the buttermilk, and then gradually mixes it into the crumbs before stirring in the bacon and leeks from earlier.
Roll out the dough onto a flour-dusted surface until 2cm thick and use a cutter to stamp out as many dumplings as you can. Brush the dumplings with beaten egg and then place them on top of the stew. Finally, bake in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or “until the dumplings are risen and golden and the stew is blipping and bubbling away nicely”.
To check out the full recipe, you can visit Jamie Oliver’s website. Enjoy!
Do you have a story to share? Get in touch at yourmirror@trinitymirror.com.
