Turkey and Ham Pie

The house is quieter now. The big day is done, the table cleared, and the fridge is full of things wrapped in foil. A turkey carcass, half a ham, the tail end of the bread sauce nobody quite finished. Boxing Day has its own rhythm: slower, softer, the kind of day where you drift into the kitchen in socks and start pulling things together without a plan.

This pie is what happens when you open the fridge and take stock. Leftover turkey, torn into rough pieces. Good ham, the kind you bought properly and carved yourself, cut into chunks that hold their own against the bird. A sauce made with butter, flour, and stock, the real sort if you simmered the carcass overnight, enriched with cream and a good handful of tarragon. Tarragon is the herb that understands poultry. It's not subtle, but it's right. A little Dijon mustard for backbone. A squeeze of lemon to keep everything honest.

Puff pastry on top, the all-butter kind from the shop. I've made my own and I'll make it again, but not today. Today is about putting the leftovers to work without turning it into a project. The pastry puffs and gilds itself golden in the oven, the filling bubbles up through the slit in the lid, and within the hour you've turned the remnants of Christmas into something worth sitting down for. There are few better feelings than putting a warm plate in front of someone on a cold afternoon when nobody expected anything more than sandwiches.

I wrote it down in the notebook last year: Turkey pie. Tarragon. The 27th. Everyone came back for seconds. That's all the review it needs.