Leftovers Salad Recipe from Jacques Pépin | Cooking at Home | KQED

If you know Jacques Pépin, you know that he is a big fan of conserving food. This video for his famous fridge leftovers salad is the perfect example of how he is able to use even the most bedraggled vegetable from the recesses of his refrigerator through trimming, soaking, peeling and other methods. This episode is more inspiration than a step-by-step recipe, use it to bring new life to old veggies in your own kitchen.

What you’ll need:
Leftover produce from your fridge! Jacques uses: bread, green onion, zucchini, radishes, mushroom (of course), onion, tomato, cilantro, olive oil, red wine vinegar

Jacques Pépin Cooking At Home: Fridge Salad
Subscribe to watch a new Jacques Pépin video every week:
https://www.youtube.com/kqed?sub_conf……
#jacquespepin​​​​​​​ #leftovers #salad #recipes #kqed

About Jacques Pépin Cooking At Home:
Jacques Pépin Cooking At Home features short recipe videos that transform readily-available ingredients into exciting new dishes, perfect for newly-anointed home cooks and seasoned chefs alike. Presented by the Jacques Pépin Foundation, an organization dedicated to enriching lives and strengthening communities through the power of culinary education. https://jp.foundation/​​​

Watch KQED’s new food history series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1LaW-AR98H82yhvfwWYWMwhFVjyagA-A

– Hi, I’m Jacques Pepin,
and I’m cooking at home.
(gentle jazz music)
I hate to throw anything out.
I never do.
We, you and I, do what my
wife call the fridge soup,
whatever is left in the refrigerator.
I do the same thing with salad.
I just went through my refrigerator here
and you can see those things
are in pretty bad shape.
But I will do a salad with it.
First off, that bread looks a bit old.
I’ll just soak it one second,
a little bit of water on it.
(water trickling)
That’s it.
I’m gonna cut it in there.
(knife clacking)
You do that a bit ahead
so that I’m going to
put olive oil in there
and the juice of the tomato,
I have a tomato here,
that will absorb into the bread here.
Okay, two, well, maybe
three piece of bread,
that’s what I add.
The recipe is not really a recipe,
it’s a way of cooking
because it’s never the same.
You never have the same thing left over.
You can see that that
scallion here is pretty old.
(knife thudding)
The part here, that part here.
This one here also.
(scallion squelching)
And the end of it.
Okay, I have a zucchini here,
which is a bit soft, leftover.
You know what I will do?
I will get all the outside here,
(knife clacking)
and I’ll discard the center
here, the soft things.
(knife clacking)
I have a couple of radish here.
They are a bit damaged here, brown.
(peeler scraping)
I will clean them up.
(peeler scraping)
(peeler clinks)
(knife clacking)
Here.
(knife thudding)
I have that piece of mushroom.
Here again, it’s a little old and dark,
but I’ll clean it up also.
I have that onion,
which is a piece of onion in bad shape.
I’m gonna trim the end of it here.
(knife slicing)
The end of it here.
(knife thuds)
Remove the first two,
at least two layer here,
(knife scraping and thudding)
and the center here.
(knife clacking)
That piece is stale.
(knife clacks)
And of course, that half tomato.
I used the other half to do a sandwich.
So I have all of that stuff here.
I have a little bit of cilantro here.
(knife clacking)
And I’m going to put in there as well.
(knife thuds)
I want a good dash of olive oil.
There, a couple of tablespoon.
(olive oil drizzling)
A dash of my vinegar.
(vinegar sloshing)
That’s it.
And you can do that ahead.
In fact, you should do it ahead
so it has the time to
marinate for a little while.
(knife clacking)
(knife clacking)
Okay.
My scallion.
(knife clacking)
Sometime, I mean, if it really
get too bad, I throw it out.
(knife clacking)
But I have already a hard time
throwing out any type of food
when so many people in the
world are dying of hunger.
So here, again, what I said,
this is not really a recipe
because you never have the same thing.
(knife clacking)
It’s just an idea.
What you do with those thing.
(knife clacking)
I have here.
(knife clacking)
I have zucchini.
And I think I’m going
to remove that part too.
(knife clacking)
(knife thudding)
I have onion there.
Finally, a couple of radish.
(knife clacking)
(knife thudding)
Here we are.
I’m gonna put some pepper in it.
And I have a good salad for
at least two people here.
A good dash of salt.
(spoon clinking)
And I’ll see whether.
(spoon clinking)
Maybe a little more dash
of olive oil, never hurt.
(spoon clinking)
And here it is, my fridge leftover salad.
(plate clinks)
Really, get a big plate.
(spoon clinking)
Put that on top.
(spoon clinking)
As I said, if you
marinate it a bit longer,
then the bread will get
the juice of the tomato.
(spoon clinking)
That’s it.
Give that to your guests.
They will never know it was leftover stuff
from your refrigerator.
Enjoy and happy cooking.
(gentle jazz music)