Kitchen Serendipity

I love leftovers.  I am disappointed when a meal does not yield them.  I love leftovers for the following reasons:

1. I want to eat them again
2. I suspect they will improve or otherwise change with time
3. I have an idea for how to use them in another dish -- i.e. use them as a shortcut to something otherwise too complex to cook.  I have long since suspected that many recipes with long lists and many steps are actually a compendium or amalgamation of leftovers.
4. Serendipity meals

The last option is the most risky, even more so than the second option.

Serendipity is not only a "pleasant or fortuitous surprise," but one that is found without being sought, nor without awareness of a need.  It's the "happy accident" which people may ascribe to luck or perhaps to talent.

My serendipity meals usually consist of items I have stashed in the fridge, and then forgot about, but through luck, they are as good to eat when they are found -- the result of a sort of treasure hunt.  I'm not an organized or tidy person, so this type of thing is not unusual, thankfully.

But more so, is when a leftover something becomes something else -- a surprise, and one which is or becomes better than expected.

Example: This morning, I was looking for breakfast.  I had congestion, so I thought maybe something I can have like a noodle bowl?  I had started a ramen broth; it was on the stove, but not finished.  Still, what could I have from the fridge?

I live with Bif, so things which I leave in the fridge (or anywhere, really), are not necessarily where I put them, and he might even have eaten them himself.  Serendipity is not limited in a household, after all.  And so, I discovered that he had eaten or disposed of items I thought might work: some leftover broth; ginger scallion oil; cooked onion; etc.

But I did find leftover mushroom cabbage dumpling filling -- I'd made these for Christine on her birthday -- and I had run out of dumpling skins, so I put these in a tight-fitting lid and stashed it in the coldest bottom of the fridge.  To my surprise (Christine's now a month into her most recent annual turnover), it was good and smelled of mushroom and soy.  I put it all into a bowl, added  hot water, and put it in the microwave.  It was a very nice soup, and now that it was heated, notes of spring onions and ginger came through, along with some garlic.  The cabbage retained its crunch.  I added the remainder of a rice serving from last night's Meen Moilee, and I suddenly had a serviceable, restorative, uncongestifying brew which I wouldn't have created from scratch, simply because I never would have thought to do so.

I did top it with some Indian fried snacks, because I had them from our trip to the Ganesh Temple.  It made the ugly brown and white soup prettier.  "Serendipity Soup" is too pretty a name for this delicious soup.