Caitríona Redmond: My turkey and ham filo pie recipe will use up any festive leftovers

Plus my 2024 resolutions and food predictions

This filo pie recipe is worth the effort.

It’s time for my annual performance review. How do I do this you may ask? It all sounds very official but it’s more an informal thing to be honest. Being freelance I’m essentially assessing myself, but I am also my greatest critic so don’t expect me to go easy on myself.

The first indicator of my kitchen performance is the brown or compost bin. I can easily review how I am getting on by logging into my waste collector’s website or checking my invoices for the past year for the lift weights. The heavier the bin, the more food waste I have thrown out. I’ll crosscheck this against my weights in 2022 and there is every chance I’ll have to confront an uncomfortable truth, that I threw out more this year than last.

Next up, the energy bill. Thanks to being signed up to the ESB Networks I have full access to my smart meter data. This is either a brilliant or a disastrous idea, depending on whether I like to stick my head in the sand. I can see when and for how long I used the oven based upon my energy consumption, plus the dishwasher and the hob. I can even detect how many times I boil a kettle everyday. It’s not easy to trawl through but it gives me plenty to improve upon. Everybody with a smart meter can sign up for free on the ESB Networks website and it’s well worth it.

Now for the grocery bills. Every time I go shopping I either scan my loyalty card (regardless of the supermarket) or take a photograph of the receipt. I know already that my groceries cost more in 2023 than the previous year thanks to inflation. However, have I been making the food I buy work for me or do I need to change my buying patterns? The easiest way to detect this is to match the receipts with my store cupboards.

You’ll see plenty of experts talking about food trends in restaurants they expect to see in 2024 (like next week in this very magazine.). I’m more interested in grocery shopping trends, however. While the rate of food inflation has steadied, it is still far than January 2023 to fill a shopping trolley. We are all still feeling the pinch.

Therefore, I expect food hacks and items like ready noodles and toasties (tasty comfort foods) to continue to be talking points. Optimistically, I’m hoping more people will grow their own food, considering the stellar work that GIY Ireland have been doing in 2023 to get Ireland growing. That being the case, innovative ways to preserve food and make more from food that is classically wasted will be an important trend to watch out for. For myself, I’m hoping that this year will bring health more than anything else and I hope it does for you too.

Store Cupboard Stocktake

With the New Year comes an opportunity to start afresh in the kitchen, but don’t throw out what you have thrown in the back of the presses quite yet. Comb your stores and pull out every half-used or package that has been opened for over 3 months and resolve to make use of them.

Half used bags of pasta of varying sizes and quality can be mixed together to make ribollita (Italian broken pasta soup); incidentally one of the best ways to use up leftover turkey meat, or minestrone.

Herbs, spices, oils, and vinegars; once opened these items can lose their potency and flavour in a very short period of time. For spices, with some exceptions (nutmeg in particular), you can double recipe quantities of opened jars and packages to get the the best out of your spice rack. For oils and vinegars check use by and recommendations and certain oils can go rancid once the seal has been broken.

Turkey & Ham Filo Pie

recipe by:Caitriona Redmond

Serve with a fresh green salad

Servings

6

Preparation Time

 45 mins

Cooking Time

 60 mins

Total Time

 1 hours 45 mins

Course

 Baking

Ingredients

• 1 large onion, sliced

• 100g butter

• 50g plain flour

• 250ml warm milk

• 2 tbsp wholegrain mustard

• 1 medium carrots, peeled and grated

• 1 courgette, grated

• 300g cooked ham

• 300g cooked turkey

• 270g pack of filo pastry

• 100g melted butter for brushing

Method

1. Sauté the onion with the butter in a large saucepan on a medium heat until translucent. Add the flour and cook with the onions until you get a nutty colour from the paste. Slowly add the milk, stirring all the time until you have a smooth but thick sauce. It’s important it’s thick at this stage. Stir in the mustard, carrot and courgette. Cover and cook for 10 – 15 minutes. Finally add the cooked meat. Set the saucepan to one side and allow to cool to room temperature.

2. Preheat a fan oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Take a springform circular baking tin. Grease with some melted butter.

3. Open the filo pastry and sit it lengthways (landscape mode) on a chopping board in front of you, brush the pastry with melted butter. Spoon 3 tablespoons of the thickened sauce mixture onto the filo pastry. Roll the pastry into a long sausage containing the sauce. Repeat until all the layers of filo are filled and rolled into long sausages.

4. Coil the filled filo pastry inside of the baking tin/dish. Brush liberally with melted butter.

5. Bake in the oven for 1 hour until the filo is crispy and golden on top. Allow to cool slightly before removing the pastry from the baking tin, slicing, and serving with a fresh green salad.