Christmas food and leftovers. Mostly leftovers

We spent Christmas Day with friends this year. Our contribution was the starter, a crab and crayfish cocktail of which I was extremely proud. But we also made a couple of festive meals designed with lots of lovely leftovers in mind.

The glaze is simple - treacle, mustard and sugar.

Nigella's ham in coke (no jokes please, I love her) was a beautiful thing served hot with mashed potatoes and broccoli, but its 3kg bulk was destined for sandwiches, a pasta sauce, a pie, and a bean-thick soup.

I cooked the cabbage in the buttery turkey juices while the joint rested

A turkey breast joint reclined in splendour next to a pile of Italianate pandoro and sausagemeat stuffing, perked up with cranberries, pistachios and lemon zest, but then joined up with the ham for sandwiches and the splendid pie.

Turkey, ham, brie and stuffing in a baguette

The leftovers for the pie - the sauce was a veloute spiked with white wine

The rest of the pandoro from the stuffing (which had been sitting in the freezer since I bought it at a knock-down price in January) became a luxurious bread and butter pudding and a base for a rather novel cheesecake, which I will probably post about in the future.

Crab and Crayfish cocktails (serves 5)

cocktail sauce

100g mayonnaise (I used Hellmans roasted garlic)
60g ketchup
11/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp brandy (the brandy idea came from Kavey on twitter, it's a very good one)

salad

1/2 little gem lettuce, cut into fine chiffonade
1/4 cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into fine dice
1 slice pickled jalapeno chilli, finely minced
1/2 avocado, finely diced
Juice of half a lemon

to assemble

100g white crab meat
150g crayfish tails
50g caviar/lumpfish roe/salmon roe etc to garnish (optional)

Combine the mayonnaise, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and brandy, and taste for seasoning. It might need a little more brandy.

Toss together the salad ingredients and divide between serving glasses.

Mix 2/3 of the cocktail sauce with the the crab and most of the crayfish tails, keeping a few aside for garnish.

Pile the sauced seafood on top of the salad, dollop with a little extra sauce and garnish with the reserved crayfish tails and some caviar, if using. Serve with some crisp toast.