Recipes

A favourite from Henrietta Green, this is the classic broth base recipe to use up your leftover Christmas turkey.

Serves 4-6

    Leftover roast turkey plus bones, skin and other trimmings (see right)
    2 bay leaves
    10 black peppercorns
    4-6 celery stalks, with leaves
    3-4 carrots
    2-3 leeks
    1 large onion
    Handful of parsley
    55g (2oz) basmati rice
    150ml (¼ pint) crème fraiche
    Few drops Worcestershire sauce
    Sea Salt and black pepper

Method

Put the turkey in a large pan with the bay leaves, peppercorns and a generous pinch of salt. Pour over water to cover and place over a high heat.

Rinse and trim the celery stalks, carrots and leeks. Top and tail the onion but leave the skin on. Chop it into quarters. Coarsely chop two of the celery stalks and one carrot. As they are ready, add the chopped onion, carrot and celery to the pan, together with the rinsed stalks from the parsley and the rinsed green trimmings from the leeks. Add more water if necessary.

When the contents of the pan come to a boil, leave to boil rapidly for a few minutes, then skim off any scum from the surface.

Leave to simmer for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, finely chop the remaining vegetables.

At the end of the 20 minutes, strain the stock through a colander and return to the pan. Add the finely chopped vegetables and rice and bring back to a simmer. Leave to simmer for about 10 minutes, or until the vegetables and rice are just tender.

Meanwhile, when cool enough to handle, shred any meat from the turkey trimmings and chop finely.

Stir the turkey into the soup with the crème fraiche. Adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce and snip in the parsley to finish.