Leftover Stews: Ravioli and the Miroton

What the French call les restes, a term little more enticing than our “leftovers,” the Italians call the incatenata—the “chained up.” The incatenata is a succession of dishes, each based on the one preceding it, that make up the weekly fare of a well-run but parsimonious kitchen. Anyone who cooks regularly and with a little imagination can create his or her own incatenata. In certain French kitchens, the use of leftovers has become almost formulaic—a leftover stew or braised dish reappears en gelée (see Cold French-style Pot Roast), and whatever’s left of that may very well end up as a stuffing for ravioli, more likely in the south, or reheated in a kind of gratin called a miroton, more likely in the north.