Guests at our house again? Yes indeed. Our house seems to have an uncanny knack of inviting people to stay on a very regular basis. It certainly seems to like company.

And our honoured guests at the mo’? Royalty maybe? No, but the next best thing as far as I’m concerned. My mate (and jolly ol’ English cockle) Micky, Rachael and their new wee bairn Aurien, and Micky’s mum Jane and her husband Jerry. And they were here to eat some Australian lamb. I though some fish and chips with mushy peas might be the go, but apparently they were getting enough of a nostalgia fix from the shitty weather. So lamb it was!

A quick premise to the story if I may… Jane and Jerry are visiting from the UK and the whole trip so far has been clouded (pun intended) by rain and shitty weather in general. Micky brought them down on the promise they could experience the famed lamb roasted in the coals that has wooed many a visitor to our humble home. But alas the rains they stayed. These guys could’ve seriously saved themselves a few quid and experienced the same sort of holiday back home. But, being a pirate of the high seas and always up for a challenge, this BBQ was effing well going to happen… and nary hell nor high water was going to get in my way. Although I will admit the soaking wet wood did pose a challenge. But bugger me a promise is a promise, so I whipped that fire into submission with my raging horn and soon enough the lamb was cooking.

Aussie classic roast lamb with a taste of home for our Limey friends… a lamby vindaloo sauce.

LAMB-Y VINDALOO CURRY SAUCE

500g lamb shoulder/neck chops

3 brown onion, diced

6 cloves garlic, crushed

½ cup white wine vinegar

½ cup butter

300ml water

4 tablespoons tomato sauce/ketchup

4 tablespoons coriander seed, roasted and ground

2 tablespoons cumin, roasted and ground

1 teaspoon each ground cardamon and tumeric

½ teaspoon each ground cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, cloves

1 long red chilli (or more if you can handle the heat)

6 bay leaves

1 teaspoon cornflour mixed with 2 tablespoons water to thicken

• Soften the onion and garlic in the butter
• Add the spices and lamb and cook out for 5 minutes
• Add everything else except the cornflour and simmer for an hour or so until the lamb is tender
• Shred the lamb off the bone and put it back into the sauce (we’re shredding the meat because it’s a sauce not a chunky curry. Kind of a wanky, cheffy, impress-the-guests version of a curry)
• Add the corn flour and simmer for another few minutes
• You should have an awesome vindaloo gravy
• Obviously this could be cooked out with 2kg of beef chuck when the spices go in for a kick-ass beef vindaloo

And the two more mature gentlemen at the table ate their lamb and then proceeded to show us pups how to remove every bit of meat from a lamb bone. They gnawed on the bones like a three legged mongrel dog. They sucked the bones dry like a five buck Taiwanese prostitute. It seriously looked like ants had cleaned up the carcass. All right. I’ll shut up now.