{"id":34555,"date":"2020-09-23T10:40:20","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T16:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=34555"},"modified":"2025-03-07T11:24:13","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T18:24:13","slug":"persian-tahdig-and-more-kitchen-hacks-for-leftovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/persian-tahdig-and-more-kitchen-hacks-for-leftovers\/","title":{"rendered":"Favorite kitchen hacks for leftovers from frozen ‘herb bombs’ to risotto ‘pancakes’ and Persian tahdig"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"Persian
Making Persian tahdig is a way to use up leftover starchy foods, for example, macaroni and cheese. Photo by Bill St. John<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More often than not, I grocery shop with my close friend Chagrin, who just talks incessantly.<\/p>\n

Rolling my cart down the aisles, all I hear in my head are Chagrin\u2019s belly-aching questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would anyone cook mac\u2019 and cheese for just one?\u201d \u201cAll I\u2019ve got to make are croutons for that Caesar salad, so does that mean I\u2019ll just waste the rest of this loaf?\u201d \u201cWhoever actually uses an entire bunch of parsley?\u201d<\/p>\n

Chagrin also follows me home and blabs whenever I\u2019m at work in the kitchen. Evidently, she doesn\u2019t like to waste.<\/p>\n

\u201cOK, there you see it. Enough boiled pasta to feed the third grade.\u201d \u201cWell, what have we here? That finger of ginger has more wrinkles than the Dos Equis guy<\/a>. Are those sprouts coming out of that garlic bulb?\u201d<\/p>\n

Et. Cetera.<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019ve taught myself to take Chagrin\u2019s nags and spin them into something useful. Culinary jiu-jitsu, if you will.<\/p>\n

Here are two hacks that might profitably utilize your own kitchen excess.<\/p>\n

Whenever I note the close-to-corpse remainders from a bunch of parsley in the refrigerator\u2019s vegetable bin, or Chagrin\u2019s gnarly knob of ginger or sprouting head of garlic, I make \u201cherb bombs,\u201d small frozen, concentrated pieces of minced herbs (sometimes with ginger).<\/p>\n

\"favorite
Keep some frozen \u201cherb bombs\u201d on hand to lend lots of flavor to lots of foods. Photo by Bill St. John.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These you can use to finish a pan sauce for a steak; enrich the end of a stir-fry; lay down an exclamation point in a bowl of soup; up the ante on a fried rice; coat the pasta noodles with something extra \u2014 you get the idea.<\/p>\n

Add a small handful of blanched parsley leaves (and some hanging-around spinach leaves if you have them) \u2014 blanching is key \u2014 with a couple cloves of garlic and a 1\/2-inch-square of peeled, chopped ginger to a food processor. Pulse and process, binding the pulp with an extra virgin olive oil (not water; EVOO holds together all the flavors better in the freezer).<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t want a too-aggressive oil here, just one that has great undernotes of fruit flavor such as a Ligurian or Provencal oil, or something from the mild, buttery arbequina olive of Spain.<\/p>\n

Freeze the paste into cubes or, better, splay flat in a sturdy plastic zipper bag. Crack out a smidge whenever you\u2019re after the bomb.

More great recipes and tips<\/a> from Bill St. John.<\/div>\n

Another favorite kitchen hack of mine is to take next-day leftover risotto and fry it up into a crisp pancake, sort of a flat arancini ball. The Italians call the pancake \u201crisotto al salto\u201d and it loosely translates that \u201cthe risotto jumps into your mouth.\u201d Nice.<\/p>\n

Iranian cooks do much the same with next-day leftover pasta preparations; they fry it in clarified butter and olive oil and call the crisp pancake a \u201ctahdig.\u201d What the skillet does is add a huge additional flavor, that of a crisp skin, the brown of a pecan shell, to both sides of the pancake. Let\u2019s say you have some leftover mac \u2018n\u2019 cheese (or any leftover rice, cornmeal, or other pasta dish). Make a tahdig out of it.<\/p>\n

Persian tahdig<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Makes 1<\/p>\n

\"Persian
Persian tahdig is a great way to use up leftovers. Photo by Bill St. John.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ingredients<\/strong><\/h3>\n

3 tablespoons olive oil (or a mix of clarified butter and olive oil)<\/p>\n

2-3 cups leftover macaroni and cheese (or other starchy leftover such as rice pilaf or risotto)<\/p>\n

Additional olive oil if necessary<\/p>\n

Chopped flat-leaf parsley<\/p>\n

Freshly ground black pepper and salt, to taste<\/p>\n

Directions<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Heat a 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, add the olive oil (or the mix of clarified butter and oil). Slip in whatever leftover mac \u2019n\u2019 cheese you\u2019re now going to turn into utter scrumptiousness, and pat it down with a silicone spatula into a flat pancake.<\/p>\n

Once it starts sizzling, let it fry for a good 15 minutes over medium-low heat, frequently tucking in the edge all around with the spatula, turning the skillet a quarter turn every few minutes to even out the heat, and jostling the skillet to keep the Persian tahdig loose in the skillet.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll hear the Persian tahdig scratch somewhat when the first side is browned enough. Slip the tahdig out of the skillet onto a large flat cookie sheet, or pizza peel or pan, and lightly wipe out the skillet with paper toweling. Place the open side of the skillet over the \u201craw\u201d side of the tahdig and carefully flip everything over so that the tahdig can now crisp on its second side.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll probably need to slip a little more olive oil down into the skillet and under the Persian tahdig (but, depending on the style of mac \u2019n\u2019 cheese preparation, perhaps not). When the tahdig is finished cooking and nicely colored, cut it as you wish to serve it, and top with chopped flat-leaf parsley and a solid grinding of black pepper and salt, to taste.<\/p>\n

You may reach Bill St John at billstjohn@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More often than not, I grocery shop with my close friend Chagrin, who just talks incessantly. Rolling my cart down the aisles, all I hear in my head are Chagrin\u2019s belly-aching questions. \u201cWhy would anyone cook mac\u2019 and cheese for just one?\u201d \u201cAll I\u2019ve got to make are croutons for that Caesar salad, so does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2197,"featured_media":34560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4799,153,2366,9187,4415],"class_list":["post-34555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-living","tag-bill-st-john","tag-healthy-eating","tag-healthy-recipes","tag-readysetco","tag-recipes"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPersian tahdig and more kitchen hacks for leftovers - UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Persian tahdig is one way to use up leftover starchy foods. 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