In a Pickle, In a Jam? Saving Food Scraps with Gourmet Hacks
In a Pickle?
Let’s face it, not everyone gets excited about leftovers. And very often, we tend to discard perfectly good scraps straight into the trash. But if you start looking at your scraps in a different way, there are effortless methods to drastically reduce food waste and, better yet, make gourmet magic.
I’m talking about more than just chucking a piece of chicken into a Tupperware – which is often just code for “I’ll throw it out later in the week.” We need to find ways to maximise the use we get out of everything that comes into our kitchen.
The Great Jam Scandal and Homemade Glory
One of my favourite things to do with lots of overripe fruit—berries, peaches, apples, pears—is obvious: make a smoothie that lasts me a couple of days. But every now and again, I have a bit of a “jam session.”
And this is where my deep-seated distrust of supermarket products comes in. There’s something about buying jam that makes me very nervous. You see those ready-made jars, and if you look closely, all you really see is stodge and colour. They’re almost luminescent or fluorescent.
The logo might say “apricot” or “mixed berry,” or more likely, “non-existent berry” or “mystery berry.”
If you read the ingredients, it just says “fruit.” It never specifies a particular berry or mentions taking pride in picking the best peaches or the juiciest watermelon. I’ve read horror stories that the fruit you’re eating isn’t the fruit you’re thinking of, with fillers like pumpkin being used for volume and texture, disguised by artificial flavourings. You get a lot of texturisers, emulsifiers, and preservatives—it just makes my skin crawl.
If you really want a great jam—one that is fragrant and flavourful—you need to learn how to make it yourself.
- Quick Coulis: If you’re short on time, use a very easy ratio: cup of fruit, cup of sugar, reduce it, blitz it, and you’re finished. You’ve got a coulis to use as a sauce, dressing, or garnish.
- Jam: Go the whole hog and make a proper jam. The homemade version is often runnier and far more flavourful than the tinned variety. It’s not just for toast; you can use it as a compote, a pie filling, or sandwiched between cakes.
- Marmalade: This is not rocket science. Take all your leftover citrus, add equal quantities of sugar, bring it to a boil, reduce it, and you’ve got instant marmalade.
Maxing Out on Flavour and Reducing Waste
We throw away so many usable scraps every day. While peels often absorb the most pesticides, wash and scrub them well, and you can reuse almost everything.
Stock, Salts, and Schnitzels
- Vegetable Stock: Don’t waste your onion skins, carrot tops, potato skins, or celery. Boil them down and reduce them into a rich vegetable stock for soups, risottos, or gravies. It’s all about getting the maximum flavour out of things you’d ordinarily waste.
- Fragrant Salt: A nifty trick I love is to never throw away citrus peels. Grate or zest them (avoid the pith), dehydrate them, and crush them into salt. It gives you a fragrant lemony or orangey salt and saves you having to buy that expensive gourmet stuff.
- Croutons and Breadcrumbs: Leftover bread is a constant struggle in my house, and I hate wasting it. Croutons are effortless. Cube and toast the leftover bread in the oven or the airfryer (blitz, as they say). Toss them with some olive oil and herbs. Go chunky for croutons for salads, or blitz it finer for breadcrumbs for schnitzels and stuffings.
The Dessert Encore
Stale cake is a thing of misery because cake is only good on the day you bake it, when it’s at its freshest. But day-old cake is prime for an upgrade—a “dessert encore.”
My favourite instant dessert trick is to reheat cake in the microwave. If it has frosting or icing, it melts down and becomes a self-saucing dessert. You can repurpose leftover sponge into a hot dessert by pouring over a caramel sauce, heating it up, and serving it with hot fruit or whipped cream. Or, in summer, repurpose it into trifles or simply serve that microwaved cake with a scoop of ice cream.
The Joy of the Quick Pickle
I often see people asking what to do with leftover stalks, and the answer is simple: turn it into a pickle. Pickles are so easy to make, and they ensure you never waste.
- The Brine: Take equal quantities of water and vinegar, add some salt, sugar, and seasoning. Pour it over the scraps and submerge everything under the pickling brine.
- Quick vs. Intense: Leave it for 24 hours for a quick pickle, or a couple of days for a more intense flavour.
I often have leftover onion from a salad. It never looks its best after it’s come out of the fridge—it usually looks like it’s been in the morgue, limp and flaccid. Now, I just chop it up and whack it into my current jar of pickles. By the end of the week, you’ve got instant pickles.
And who can forget the mighty turnip? I once had some turnips I couldn’t finish, so I thought, why not just pickle them? I don’t know what it is about turnips, but there’s something about them that gives me nostalgia. We simply need to find ways to maximise their use.
Upcycling your food is not only flavourful, delicious, and reduces waste, it just adds so much more to your culinary experience.
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