In Xinjiang, lamb, or often mutton, comes with every meal, seven days a week. The smoky scent of barbecued lamb lingers in the air throughout the whole province from the streets of Urumqi, where it wafts out of restaurants entrances, to the northern prairies where Kazakh minorities sell lamb skewers on the roadside to travellers. Xinjiang cooks are experts in lamb, stuffing lamb buns, roasting lamb ribs, slicing lamb for hot pots, mincing for kebabs, slow-cooking whole lamb legs, boiling sheep’s heads, bubbling up lamb soup, the list could go on.

I spent two weeks in Xinjiang earlier this year, eating lamb cooked a dozens of ways. It is the best lamb in the world (Inner Mongolia might be a close second), which is no surprise when we take a look at the terrain: thousands of miles of green hills stretching across most of Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang with nothing but nomads and their herds. The UK would fit four times into the vast, empty grasslands of Northern China. What better place for a sheep to graze, fattening up on lush summer grass?

However, I discovered this dish in a Uyghur restaurant in Beijing years ago before I’d ever been to Xinjiang. Uyghur chefs might find it amusing that I’ve written down this recipe at all as it’s a leftover dish: a way to use up offcuts of lamb from the kitchen and day-old naan bread. And yet, I love it. We used to order this when we wanted a pick-me-up during the winter, an indulgent little lunch-time treat. The lamb fat melts and seeps into the crispy naan, the cumin seeds add a nutty element, but it would all be too rich without liberal handfuls of coriander.

Serves 2-3