Boxing Day pie: how to use up your Christmas leftovers

I’m going to keep this short, because if you have flung yourself into the festivities, or simply survived them, and are now sizing up piles of leftovers wearily and warily, the last thing you want to do is read a blog post. If that’s not the case, please feel free to trawl my archives and fill your boots. But it’s important not to waste valuable Quality-Street-eating or telly-gazing time on recipe-based mirth. So know this: this Leftovers Pie will save your Boxing Day.

Here are the headlines: this dish is (a) easy, (b) delicious and (c) entirely adaptable according to what you have in the house. Got stuffing? Throw it in! Leftover roast potatoes? Squash them down and mix them through. A surplus of pigs in blankets? I don’t believe you, that’s just ridiculous. I’ve done this with goose before, but it’ll happily take any poultry, and any pork-based product, and if you don’t have leeks, just cook down a boatload of onions really slowly, and add them.

Really, this is less of a recipe, and more of an encouragement to throw whatever leftovers you have into a pan, and then cover them in pastry. The whole point is that you should be able to make this pie without any fuss, and using up things you’ve got in clingfilmed bowls or stuffed somewhere at the back of your freezer. It’s a completely gorgeous pie, by the way, comforting, and packing a real punch of flavour. It’s substantial but without being too rich for the post Christmas slump.

You’ll see in the ingredients that there is pre-bought puff pastry. Because, frankly, if you’re the sort of person who is emotionally capable of making even rough puff pastry on Boxing Day, I’m not sure we can be friends.

It goes like this: