Paprika sauce

I had a bunch of people over for dinner last night. All lovely people, with interesting jobs or curiosity about things that transcended secondary school entrance requirements and the size of the queue at checkout no 7 at the local Tesco. Lots of random connections drew these people together, not just their friendship with me or my partner - they had kids at the same school, or they worked in similar professions. They also, all of them, had healthy appetites. So I turned out no fewer than 6 separate main course dishes - a tray of roasted halibut steeped in rosemary, a generous seared tuna salad, some fried quinoa with blanched beans, braised green lentils with a lime dressing, some roasted cauliflower with roasted almonds and lemon, a quite extraordinary sour cream mash. And a white chocolate and amaretti cheesecake with a raspberry and lemon frangipane, AND some homemade chocolate truffles (dark chocolate, the good stuff; espresso coffee; honey. Mesmerising to make.) And everyone tucked in with gusto and audible appreciation, and it was a lovely evening, and we had Leftovers. Multiple blogs have been written about what you do with leftovers. Make tortillas out of them, blitz them into soup, smoothie them, chuck them into a risotto...the possibilities are endless. When I grew up, my Mum had one route for leftovers. She made paprika sauce, in a big sauce boat, thick with cornflour, smokey with paprika, creamy with stock. I would take a piece of drying sliced turkey or chicken or fish or whatever the Leftover was, and pour sauce over it enough for it to revive and swim. I poured so much of it I could scoop it into a spoon and drink it (and frequently did. In fact when my parents were preoccupied with their own dishes I would occasionally dispense with the spoon and raise the plate to my lips. What clandestine joy). So, presented with the array of options marketed by a generation of hip TV chefs, I opted for the Tried and Tested. Paprika sauce. It's an art, getting paprika sauce right. You need enough paprika to achieve Hungarian smokiness, but not so much as to make it bitter and inedible. You need onion and tomatoes, enough to achieve that stock richness, but not so much as to overpower the paprika. You have the option of sour cream and since I had a half tub in my Leftovers it felt like a good way to put it to use. And then you stir, and stir, and stir. For at least 15 minutes. At around the 7 minute mark something happens and it is as if you are melting chocolate for a ganache. You stir and stir, and inhale the aroma, and watch the vegetables caramelise and melt and combine. You add the sour cream and the sharp red colour transmogrifies, smudges itself. And when it's done - anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour later (it's done in 20 but I think we've established that the making of paprika sauce is as transcendentally healing as it is gastronomically titivating), you  take your leftovers, lay some in a bowl, spoon your sauce over it, restoring richness to the dish. And you tuck in.