The lamb makes its final appearance

       This is not, repeat, not haute cuisine that I'm going to tell you about. Rather it's memories of a noodle dish I used to go crazy about in Vancouver. Dense with little nuggets of stir-fried lamb, fragrant with cumin, it was comfort food to tuck into on a rainy day.
       The sun has been shining most of the week but I was still curious to see if I could recreate the flavours. More to the point, I still had a hunk of cooked lamb sitting in the fridge. In case you've got the same, here's what you can do. Chop the lamb into little pieces and reheat it with its juices (I should have said earlier that having rich, flavourful cooking juices around makes all the difference). Add a teaspoon or more of toasted cumin seeds and red chili flakes to your taste. Then let the lamb burble away while you

 cook some linguine (or spaghetti). Drain it, mix with the lamb and top with lots of chopped green onion and fresh coriander. Delish. As I said, not haute cuisine but a good way of using up leftovers. 

      

Using up leftover duck confit

   Two legs of duck confit left from various recent meals. Four of us for lunch. Some leftover cooked potatoes too. 

    First, I fried the chunks of potato in duck fat, along with two chopped green onions. Then I stripped the duck meat off the bones and chopped it into small pieces. That got added to the pan and heated through. 

    Finally I made a bed of frisée, tossed it with vinaigrette, spooned the warm duck mixture on top, and tossed it all again. Chopped parsley. Chunks of baguette. Red wine...

    I've worked the same trick with leftover roast pork too, warming it and potatoes through in leftover jus