Hot Brown Bar

Genius can spring from necessity, as was the case during a recent home-cooked dinner with friends. That Vampin' Lady went on location to the home of great friends the Gidge and the Gidgestress to help them plow through the mountain of leftover Thanksgiving turkey that was occupying their freezer.

It all started innocently enough. One evening, the Gidgestress and I were enjoying a cocktail at a favorite haunt, and she lamented that she felt buried in turkey. I wondered aloud if she had made hot browns with any of it. She thought maybe that would be a good thing to have people over and make. I blurted out "hot brown bar!" and the rest is history.

The framework for the recipe came from the classic recipe for The Brown Hotel's hot brown.

Proper Mornay sauce takes lots and lots of whisking.

The idea was for all the ingredients to be set out on the counter, and each person would assemble their own personal hot brown.

The Mornay sauce was the cause of some angst for the Gidgestress. It became clumpy right away, and so the first batch was abandoned, left for dead (see bonus photo at the end of this post.) Gidge took the wheel this time, as he is particularly adept at making béchamel sauces. Don't you wish you had a husband who could rock a béchamel? In retrospect, both decided that had they continued on with the rest of the ingredients, the first batch likely would have been salvageable.

 Gidge makes his own bread, so thick slices of it formed the foundation of the dish.  Way better than Texas Toast, whatever that is.

•  Vampin Lady True Confession: In a surprise blog twist, TVL did zero cooking for this meal.  I sliced the little tomatoes I brought over, sipped wine, offered helpful commentary on how great the Mornay sauce was looking, ate the burnt black bits off the edges of the bacon, etc. 

On went the turkey and tomatoes, and then the mornay got slathered on top, followed by a dump of pecorino romano cheese. 

 

The sandwiches went under the broiler for a few minutes, and once the cheese began to bubble up, out they came.  

Peek into the broiler... almost ready.

Two slices of bacon went on top, along with a dusting of paprika and some minced fresh parsley.  Lydio, another friend bellying up to the hot brown bar, assembled the first one.  As you can see, the gods of cholesterol and triglycerides were smiling on us this night.  This thing was prettier than a new set of snow tires.

So beautiful, it hurts to look at it.

Without a doubt, we have discovered the best thing to do with leftover Thanksgiving turkey.  These hot browns looked and tasted spectacular. 

This party also had nog.  Lydio is a champion nogmaker.  You see, we all have our talents.

Nog... with bourbon and grated nutmeg.

•  Vampin' Lady UnTrue Confession: After all that Mornay sauce, bacon and eggnog, we all rushed ourselves to the hospital for emergency angioplasties.

Happy Hot Brown Days, y'all!

Bonus photo of the bad Mornay batch:

Clumpy Mornay sauce bound for the trash.