Aromatic lamb shank curry

I'm jumping the gun. Like, so high. I'm catapulting over the gun, 1km skyward through the clouds with a nice soft landing in a pillow factory. This week we had about 5 days over 20ºC. A couple around 25ºC. It was weather for tacos, grilled fish and salad, maybe a gelati. And like the topsy-turvy fool that I am, I went an bought lamb shanks.

It was around the time I had the sniffles, and just felt like some comforting. Comfort food for me does not come in the form of mac and cheese or scalloped potatoes or other such stodge (that, let's be serious, I'd love any other day of the week). Nope, when I'm feeling poorly, it's spicy food all the way.

Side bar: did you know what my all time favourite pasta is? Bucatini amatriciana. And it's not because of the name (mostly). It's a spicy tomato based sauce with porky bits of guanciale (that's cured pork cheek, fellas), the holey spaghetti known as bucatini and grated pecorino on top. BUT. It's all about the spice for me. In fact, I'm not even sure the spice is authentic. I know for sure it's not authentic the way I make it: with a big heaping spoon of sambal oelek (basically pure, unadulterated chilli).

Fried chicken fiesta

I'm not sure what the Bureau of Meteorology says, but it feels like it's been over 30 degrees for the 30 days straight (if we were a fancy restaurant, we'd be called 30'30' humans or something). With no aircon and 1970's insulation (ie. none) our flat has a tendency to become something of a hotbox. It's not fun to cook inside these days, so we've been barbecuing our little hearts out recently. So you can imagine how it felt to stand over some sizzling hot oil on a particularly scorching day. To say my forehead was a little shiny would be something of an understatement.

I knew I wanted to do a fried chicken cook up for our friends, but to be honest I hadn't mastered a recipe. No matter - I found some good sources round the traps who knew a thing or two about chicken of the fried variety. Matt Wilkinson, from this post, recommended soaking in buttermilk and mustard. I can't deny he's onto a winner there. He also suggested a quick dredge in breadcrumbs or flour and frying. I went with flour, because another learned meat man, our lovely butcher from Skinner and Hackett, had kindly passed on a chicken spice rub from Peter Watson. It was a cracker when paired with flour, salt and pepper.

Chicken pot pie

So the wedding diet is off to a smashing start. I have eaten fried chicken for the last two meals, and skipped breakfast more times than I care to mention over the last week. Doughnuts for dessert last night. Coffee in the form of affogato. This week, I swear, I'm back on track.

Sticky barbecue ribs

I know, I know. Ain't nothin' about barbecue ribs that's Australian. Ain't nothin' Australian about starting a sentence with "ain't nothin'". You couldn't get more American than if you fashioned aforementioned ribs into stars and stripes. But there are some days (particularly those after a wild and wooly weekend like mine) where nothing but sweet, salty, sticky ribs will do.