Once again proving that the options for reusing holiday meal leftovers are endless, this recipe makes use of leftover Christmas goose and stale bread, as part of a series focussing on sustainability and food-waste reduction.

Fairmont Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten executive chef Andreas Block from Hamburg, Germany, offers instructions of how to transform those ingredients into a classic German dish.

“Using Christmas leftovers to create new dishes helps the festive season last even longer,” Block says. “This recipe is a great way to reuse leftovers in a traditional way for the family to enjoy. A strudel is great dish for leftovers. Provided you give the attention required to the pastry, you can change the filling to adapt to what you have left over.”

Christmas goose and red cabbage strudel with lamb’s lettuce

Strudel dough

250 grams pastry flour (type 405)

60 milliitres vegetable oil

125 millilitres water

pinch of salt

Filling

knob of butter

200 grams leftover meat from Christmas goose (duck or any other roast meat works as well)

50 grams braised red cabbage

50 grams apple cubes

20 grams goose gravy

5 grams raisins

20 grams stale bread cut in one centimetre cubes

salt, pepper, and starch as needed

To garnish

lamb lettuce

drizzle Balsamic vinegar

drizzle olive oil

6 tablespoons goose gravy

1. Put flour on the work bench and make a well in the middle. Add the oil and gradually add the water while stirring it together with a fork.

2. Once all wet ingredients are incorporated, knead by hand for around five minutes until it’s a smooth dough. Let the dough rest under a cloth for 30 minutes.

3. In a pan, sweat the apple cubes in butter, then add the gravy. Add the red cabbage, goose meat, and raisins and slowly braise all together until almost all the liquid is gone. Thicken with starch as needed.

4. Add the bread cubes, season to taste, and then let it chill.

5. Place the strudel dough on a floured work surface and roll it out with a rolling pin into a rough rectangular shape approximately three millimetres thickness.

6. Place the dough on a clean-floured kitchen towel then stretch until it is as thin as possible—you should almost be able to look through it. If the dough breaks while stretching let it rest a little longer.

7. Once fully stretched, place the filling in the bottom part or the dough, then fold in the sides and roll up the strudel. Brush it with liquid butter, then place it on a baking tray.

8. Bake at 180°C for 20 minutes. Reduce the temperature if the strudel browns too fast.

9. Marinate the lettuce with vinegar and oil and place as garnish on the side.

10. To plate, spoon some gravy in the middle of the plate. Slice the strudel in equal pieces and place one piece in the middle of the sauce. Garnish with the marinated lettuce and serve.

Guten Appetit!