For a dinner party, I often serve a roast leg of lamb, studded with garlic cloves and slathered in mustard French-style. I make sure the meat when cooked is always rosy—in fact, saignant at the bone—and therefore good to use in any number of dishes that ordinarily call for raw lamb. And I always find myself with plenty of leftovers—one forgets how hefty a leg of lamb is these days. I wrote about some of my experiments with leftover lamb in my book The Tenth Muse in a section called “The Nine Lives of a Leg of Lamb.” So, if you are confronted with this happy dilemma of too much lamb, you’ll find nine recipes there, which can be cut down to serve one. I don’t want to repeat them here, but I have since experimented with this lamb curry for one, which I find delicious.
Turn humble onions into this thrifty yet luxe pasta dinner.
This pasta has some really big energy about it. It’s so extra, it’s the type of thing you should be eating in your bikini while drinking a magnum of rosé, not in Hebden Bridge (or wherever you live), but on a beach on Mykonos.
Put these out at a gathering, and we guarantee you’ll be hearing rave reviews for a long time.
A flurry of fresh tarragon makes this speedy weeknight dish of seared cod and luscious, sun-colored pan sauce feel restaurant worthy.
A dash of cocoa powder adds depth and richness to the broth of this easy turkey chili.
Among the top tier of sauces is Indonesian satay sauce, because it is the embodiment of joy and life. In fact, this sauce is also trustworthy and highly respectful of whatever it comes into contact with—perhaps it is, in fact, the perfect friend?
Caramelized onions, melty Gruyère, and a deeply savory broth deliver the kind of comfort that doesn’t need improving.
This is what I call a fridge-eater recipe. The key here is getting a nice sear on the sausage and cooking the tomato down until it coats the sausage and vegetables well.