What’s for dinner? Leftovers again? It’s an expression heard in households across the country night after night.
Thanks to Kona’s own Chef Sam Choy, those leftovers can be used to create new original meals. Choy and his partner, independant filmmaker Richard Gonzalez, have collaborated on a new cooking show, “Sam Choy’s In the Kitchen,” which premiered June 9 on YouTube.
After 28 years of filming the local cooking show, “Sam Choy’s Kitchen,” Choy was ready to try something a little different. He is currently working with the American Airlines/US Air merger to redo the food on their transcontinental flights. This weekly show fits into his busy schedule because he said “all I have to do is show up and get to be creative. Richard does the rest.” His goal is to “help the busy family on the go utilize what they already have. In America, statistics show we throw away a lot of food,” said Choy.
In the show, Choy visits a new home in Kona weekly, searching the refrigerator for leftovers he can use to make a new dish that the family won’t mind eating again instead of letting it sit until it has to be thrown away. Choy enters the home blind to what he will have to work with and targets three items he finds for that week’s show. He is trying to inspire people to make cooking fun and prolong the life of their leftovers.
Throughout the show he gives cooking tips such as “crumpling up newspaper in old plastic containers and pouring discarded cooking oil over it instead of pouring it down the drain.” He added “there’s always something cooking when Sam Choy’s in the kitchen.”
In the first episode, Choy visits the home of Jon and Cyndi Burgess. Browsing their refrigerator, he found cheese, ranch chicken, leftover pizza, soft tomatoes, salsas, cucumbers dressings, hummus, garlic butter, rolls and broccoli. From these ingredients he created ranch chicken sliders, and broccoli slaw with pizza croutons. Adding salsa and onions to the chicken while reheating changed the flavor so it didn’t taste like last night’s dinner. He then spread the chicken mixture over split buttered rolls, topped them with tomato and cheese and popped it in a 350-degree oven for 10 minutes. Broccoli and cucumber were cut up to make a slaw and bleu cheese salad dressing was combined with hummus and mayonnaise for a unique flavored dressing.
“Every refrigerator has up to 10 bottles of used salad dressing with only a little bit left in the bottom,” he said. “Mix them up for a new, uniquely flavored dressing. If there’s only a little bit left, add some water to the bottle and shake it up. That way you will get all of your money’s worth out of it.”{
He cut the leftover pizza into bite size strips and crisped them in a hot skillet. This can also be done in the oven by placing them on a roasting pan and baking until crispy. He coined the word “pizzatons” for this new take on an old leftover which can be put in a salad or served alone with dipping sauce.
Another episode features “a local staple,” fried rice made with day-old rice and “anything else in the fridge,” which included bacon, onion, broccoli, mushrooms and green beans fried with the rice in a large skillet with shoyu and oyster sauce added at the end to break up the rice and add flavor.
At Scott and Jo-Ann Ordway’s house, Choy made a salad using leftover pineapple ham along with fresh vegetables he found, including lettuce, tomato, zucchini, celery and cheese. The dressing consisted of Italian and ranch dressings whisked together with sliced olives. Leftover stir-fry chicken was added to cheese, sandwiched on flour tortillas and pan fried for a quesadilla appetizer. With last night’s pot roast, Choy made a slurry of cornstarch, with the liquid while reheating, and cream cheese added at the end to give the dish a new flavor. “Be creative, think outside the box and have fun” aded Choy.
New episodes are posted on YouTube weekly and can be found at: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dHI0TGOmeGo or by going to Youtube.com and searching “Sam Choy’s in the Kitchen.” The show can also be found on Facebook. ■