Thanksgiving Leftovers: Colcannon

If I have my way, I'll make colcannon for Thanksgiving dinner. But if I haven't had my way, I'll make it the next day anyway! This is a traditional Irish recipe (I make it every St. Patrick’s Day, too), made with mashed potatoes, milk, either kale or green cabbage, BUTTER, and scallions or chives. Of course, there are about 1,000 ways to make this, so feel free to add your own spin on it with whatever you have in your refrigerator. Some people will also make it with bacon or pancetta, but obviously that's not happening here. 

I make mashed potatoes with Yukon golds (with skins), buttermilk, butter, salt, and pepper. I like the buttermilk because it adds a little depth of flavor to bland potatoes...and I am very generous with the salt and pepper. So, these are the leftover mashed potatoes that I'm starting from and I'll always have a bit of buttermilk left over as well. If you use regular milk and that's all you have, that's completely fine! 

ingredients

4 cups leftover mashed potatoes

2 cups shredded green cabbage

1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced

1/3-2/3 cup buttermilk, as needed

6 tbsp Irish butter

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly-ground black pepper

method

In a medium pot, heat 4 tbsp butter over medium heat. Sauté the cabbage and scallions with 1 tsp salt, stirring often, until the cabbage is soft, about 8 minutes.

Add the leftover mashed potatoes to the pot, stir to combine, and heat thoroughly.

Once the mixture is hot, add a few splashes of buttermilk at a time until the mixture is creamy. This will depend on how moist your mashed potatoes were to begin with, so you may not even need to add any buttermilk at all.

Season generously with salt and freshly-ground black pepper and serve hot.