Leftover lamb wraps with homemade plum sauce

I can't overstate what a genuine pleasure I find in buying and cooking with the very best ingredients, particularly so when it's meat. We try not to cook too much meat in our house, but when we do we'd rather spend more on the good stuff and eat less of it. We also make the most out of leftovers. I stocked up at the weekend on some top quality pork, beef and lamb from top Lake District farmers and butchers Savin Hill (who - FYI - offer their meaty goodies at Chorlton Green Farmers' Market on the last Saturday of every month in front of The Horse and Jockey). I made a bog standard beef and root vegetable stew on the Saturday which was elevated by the quality of the meat. Adam magically combined the half shoulder of lamb with water, white wine, a LOT of garlic and sliced potatoes to create what I can honestly say was one of the best meals I have ever had. When you have ingredients as good as that lamb, all you need is an afternoon to while away slow cooking it, and you can create truly special food with not much effort or that many other ingredients. Anyway, not only did this shoulder joint create one fantastic Sunday roast (next time I will make it and blog the recipe I promise) but it also provided a second meal as there was some meat leftover...

Sometimes, not often, I come up with a new idea for a dish that I just know will work and this recipe is one of those times. Obviously the inspiration from this is the classic Chinese takeaway dish of duck with pancakes.

It's amazing the similar qualities that the meat from a shoulder of lamb shares with fried duck, especially when reheated in a frying pan so all the fatty bits go frazzly. They are both fatty (in a good way); very shreddable; with a musky depth of flavour; and both go superbly alongside Chinese flavours. The idea of using flour tortillas instead of Chinese pancakes is a good one: it works great and they are so freely available, unlike the pancakes.

The plum sauce (from Gok Cooks Chinese!) is phenomenally easy and good fun to make, but if you can't be chuffed to do it, then for goodness' sake just buy a jar of hoi sin or plum sauce from the supermarket! But seriously, the sauce is easy and the smell that it creates while bubbling away are worth it alone. Plums are also plentiful and therefore also very cheap at the moment.

This would make a great starter or lunch, but it's not substantial enough to serve as a dinner I don't think.

Here's how you make it:
Leftover shoulder of lamb
A small pinch of Chinese five spice powder

Tortilla flour wraps
Cucumber matchsticks
Spring onion matchsticks

For the plum sauce (or use shop bought):
About 8 plums, stone removed and chopped into chunks
3 tablespoons of light soy sauce
1 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
Half a red chilli, finely chopped (Gok uses 1 whole one but I didn't want it too hot)
1 star anise
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons of Shaoxing rice wine / dry sherry
3 tablespoons of runny honey
Splash of water
1 1/2 tablespoons of dark muscovado sugar
1/2 teaspoon of white pepper (Gok states 1/2 a tablespoon but I can only assume this is a typo!!)

De-stone and chop the plums into smallish chunks. Put all the ingredients into a pan and bring to the boil, then simmer for about 40 minutes or until the fruit has broken down. Take out the star anise and whizz in a food processor or with an electric hand whisk. Let it cool. This makes quite a bit of sauce, so you will probably have quite a bit leftover to freeze or use in another dish.

Fry your lamb leftovers. Add a pinch of spice to the mix and shred as it fries. Let the fatty bits frazzle up. Do this for about 10 minutes over a medium heat.

Chop your cucumber and spring onions into matchsticks. Smear your pancakes with sauce, then pile in your cucumber and spring onion and top with lamb. Roll away. Don't overstuff like I always do or you can't roll them up!

Just a thought: these slice well into small, inch long mini rolls (as my toddler ate them) and like this they would make great party food to serve with drinks.

Another thought: if you wanted to try this but didn't happen to have leftover shoulder of lamb, you could use sliced lamb from well rested, rare lamb leg steaks and add watercress or other salad leaves to make more of a meaty wrap.