Just what I came in to post. You can also just cover the skillet lightly with foil while the pizza is heating up crust side down, and the trapped heat will re-melt all the cheese without flipping. We’ve come to prefer pizza re-crisped this way to fresh out of the oven.
You can also re-crisp cold french fries this way. Since I really love Five Guys’ fries, I like to bring home a batch to serve with the steaks or chops I’m preparing for dinner. Just as I take the steak off the fire, I start re-crisping the Five Guys fries and the two dishes are ready to serve together.
My contribution to the thread: risotto doesn’t reheat worth a damn. It’ll never be the soft, flowy mass of tender rice again, no matter what you do.
Not even the over, which I’ve learned in the hot hot west where we don’t like oven this time of year. I use the defrost function on the microwave all the time. More even heating.
For me, it’s those skinny fast food French fries, clearly only meant to be eaten on the drive from point A to point B which should not be longer than 3 minutes.
Nothing from Taco Bell can be reheated. Ever. Jack In The Box tacos cannot be reheated, Ever
Definitely fish. Particularly battered deep fried fish(Fish’n’Chips type). Fried chicken is so much better cold out of the fridge, but fish just isn’t. There are a couple places that serve like a pound and a half of fish on Fridays, and offer you a doggie bag. But there is no way known to man or elf that can turn yesterdays fried fish into something good again.
No. guac doesn’t really blend it’s flavors completely for 8-24 hours, 24-48 hours is peak Guac,but it is still good after that.
Actually, there is a little game we play at my house. I cook enough food for the family. But since they ate a tub of sour cream and a box of Pop Tarts an hour earlier, they don’t eat what I spent time and money on preparing.
I find it generally reheats fine if, like you say, you reheat it slowly. I normally don’t sauce my brisket, but when I reheat it, I’ll reheat it slowly with a little bit of sauce, apple juice (which I more often use for smoked pork shoulder), or even a little bit of beef stock. If it wasn’t dry off the smoker, I haven’t found it problematic when reheated. Sure, it’s a little different, but it’s still delicious.
Actually, I kinda fundamentally disagree with the OP entirely. Sorta. It is the rare food that can’t be transmogrified into something delicious as leftovers. Sure, that mac & cheese isn’t going to be as good as m & c later. But it will be magnificent as a component of Bachelor Chow. Ditto that baguette. Don’t eat it as bread, eat it as croutons, or bread pudding. If you just try to recreate what the dish originally was, of course you will be disappointed. You have to be creative. Brisket becomes BBQ beef becomes hash.
The exception to the leftover rule is foods that spoil uber-quickly, like guacamole. I have never found a use for day-old guac. Don’t get me started on fast food fries.
I sort of agree, but my tip for this is to flatten the surface of the left over Guacamole (sure…“left over” like that ever happens!) and pat down a layer of cling-film over the surface. No discolouration and the taste remains pretty fresh.
But yes, in general it is far better made and eaten within the same half-hour.
They are transcendently delicious when fresh or, even better, a few hours old (they’re better at room-temp than piping hot, IMO). But refrigeration hardens the tapioca into hard, gummy, chewy awfulness. Careful, fiddle reheating will make them mostly edible again, but still disappointing, because the memory of the fresh ones still lingers from the day before.
PS: Athena, you are a wise goddess – I will have to try reheating some leftover pizza in a skillet, including flipping it to cheese side down. It may be a while, though, because most good pizza is pretty awesome cold!