Volume XIX

Using It Up

Eighty recipes for the half of the ingredient you already paid for, in eight chapters — stalks and stems, peels and tops, yesterday's bread, bones and shells, the fat left in the pan, brine and whey and aquafaba, produce a day past its best. Some scraps are genuinely worth cooking and some are fibrous, bitter or simply not worth the gas, and the last chapter names which rather than pretending all eighty are a saving.

Try 48 recipes free — two from every book, including this one.

What's inside

• 300 g stale sourdough, torn in chunks
• 700 g ripe tomatoes, in wedges
• 1 cucumber, in thick half-moons
• 1 red onion, sliced thin
• 100 ml olive oil
• 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 30 g basil leaves
• 1 tsp fine salt
• ½ tsp black pepper

1. Salt the tomatoes in a colander over a bowl and leave 20 minutes. The juice that runs out is the dressing and it is better than vinegar alone.
2. Tear the bread rather than cutting it. Torn edges hold more liquid than cut ones.
3. Whisk the tomato juice with the oil, vinegar, garlic and pepper.
4. Toss the bread in the dressing first and leave it 15 minutes, then fold in the tomatoes, cucumber and onion.
5. Add the basil at the last moment and eat within the hour. It goes from soft to sodden quickly.