Octopus, the final frontier part two

ok, so the blog never dies. Here's a few bits that need cleared out of the camera memory,
firstly Halloween
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Scary huh? (and late)

Now for the even scarier, having bought frozen octopus a couple months back it's time to get over waving the frozen packet at people and actually cook it.
First stop is the Globally Ubiquitous Search Engine, where I exercise my free will and select the the fifth link in.
Interesting, this guy seems to know what he's talking about, a wannabe Harold McGee. In fact it is the man himself, so lets get following the instructions, which are to roast the little cephalopods for 2 hours minimum at a low heat with appropriate aromatics.

I can handle that. The intent of this dish is to recreate a memory from my feckless youth enjoying pulpitos in tomato sauce in Barcelona. Not sure which was most memorable, the savour of the dish, the intensely red tomato sauce, the experience of being footloose with friends in one of the most culturally resonant European capitals, or a companion comparing them to shaved spiders.

No matter, I think I can do the red sauce bit.
So first stop is to burn a capiscum. And I mean actually burn it on the naked hob flame rather than accidently burning it in a sauce pan.

Which promptly gets shoved into an airtight container for reasons that remain mysterious to me and possibly even Harold McGee.
So returning to the octopuses (that is correct, I have an implicit Classical education by mere fact of being British and any fule kno octopus is Greek and thus the plural form is ...uses rather than ...i),
they have have been roasting for 2 hours at 175C and should be succulent little morsels swimming in luscious gravy.

 Hmm. The gravy appears not to be playing by the rules and manifested as a  caramelised veneer. No matter,  give it a little soak and simmer and something, albeit slightly carcinogenic,can be salvaged from it.

As to the matter of our precocious molluscs, they taste...okay.  I feel guilty about this as I have an irrational affection for octopus and squid - they will eventually inherit the earth after all, so time to get in the cop outs.

Plus elder son the Epicure has decided he wants some so this novelty dish is now having to feed three hungry people. And is very late.

Back to the comfort zone of the red sauce.  Aforementioned roasted pepper has been skinned and added to caramelised red onion, red chile and (red)carrots.  Bung the last of the paprika (c. 4 Tsp, but oldish) and we're back on track

Simmer with some tinned tomato a bit while cleaning and chopping spinach (NB serious tip here - a bit of grated nutmeg seems to conteract the acidic/tannic nature of spinach. Plus it apparently cost more than gold a few centuries back, so here's a chance to live like a king).

Have to serve with cousous because I'm all out of time. Briefly considered concentric circles of red, green and white but couldn't figure out which should go where. Plus family are about to start shouting at me so adopt the default serving of "fill the plate"

Consumer reaction:  Meh...Any more?
Cook's reaction:  Stick to squid - it's simpler, cheaper and slightly less unsettling. But if unsettling your dinner guests is the goal, go for more octopus and less sauce.

Meringue, the final frontier

Avid readers may have noticed a distinct lack of material recently, and yes it's true, I've decided to formally hang up my hat.
Not about cooking and stuff, but the hassle of taking grainy out of focus pictures of yet another roast pork belly.
But there have been culinary triumphs in the meantime - not exclusively involving slow cooked pork and colcannon  , lamb racks for 20 featured there (with the inevitable root and cruciciferous vegetable melange  ) , gooseberry and foraged elderflower sorbet, at which point I decided my meagre talents were better focussed on dishing the food rather out than photographing it and missing out on the post supper craic.


But one final challenge remains - the meringue.  Faffing around with mayonaise and hollandaise sauces now and again there are surplus egg whites to be dealt with. 
Egg white omelete is not an option, so that leaves the meringue. Which is beloved over all over things by eldest son for some reason.
But, boy, has he had grounds for disappointment.  But not this time, he won't even be aware of this attempt:

• 2 egg whites uncovered in fridge for 7 days
• mixing bowl clean and scalded (but notcooled)
• pinch of salt
• whisked to soft peaks
• 3 tablespoons of caster sugar added
• whisked to stiff peak
• dolloped on to oiled parchment into over at 135c
• (small dollops)
• after 40 mins, still a bit squishy
• turn up to 180 for 20 minutes
• leave with oven door open for 1 hou

Result

Damm close. Texture light and crunchy. Too much caramelisation.  

But they weren't glued to the baking tray, so this is the closest I've come yet.

Bernaise Sauce

Have some decent rib eye steak from Aldi,  the foolproof oven chips recipe
 a recommended Malbec from Lilac Wines, some backup burgers for the boys,  and it's Saturday - what could possibly go wrong?
Time to reattempt the Bearnaise Sauce, since my wife called my bluff and procured some tarragon. Don't know if it is French or Russian, but it's a big pile of tarragon that I don't have many alternatives so the bluff is called and it's time to get cooking.
Stick the oven on with the chip tray and start the hob boiling for the chips, time for one last glass of wine before the cooking starts in earnest.
Half then third the Maris Piper spuds before tippping into the pot. The race is on now. After 5 minutes decant the chips. Allow to dry while putting some olive oil in the dish to warm up.
Tip the chips into the dish along with generous amounts of turmeric, paprika, oregano, salt and pepper. Some more olive oil and mix those chips up with a spatula.

 Thirty minutes till dishing out, so time to start the bearnaise sauce (the steak, needless to say has been out of the fridge and blotted dry for a couple of hours).
Finely chop up 5 shallots, 2 bunches of tarragon.
I saw the lovely Rachael Allen use a technique of holding a bunch of herbs - sage in her case - upside down then slash at them with the biggest chef's knife. Cool!
Anyway, kinda works, looks cools but I still need to pick out the stems and chop further.
So tip that lot into the preheated pan with a good glug of red wine vinegar, some white wine and a few grinds of pepper (the classic recipe calls for white wine vinegar, but this is Aspinall's Organic so it will hopefully squeak by).

While that is boiling away it's time to assemble the bain maire. The secret here appears to be ensuring the bowl isn't touching the water, so I end up using the weighing bowl fitted on top of the stock pot, into which I've put a Tupperware dish with 150g of butter to soften up. 150g of butter! i.e a quarter pound!
I also collect a bowl of crushed ice the fridge in case of emergency - this is highly recommended,whether for physical reason, or just as a mental safety blanket.

Okay, tip the reduction into the bain maire. A bit too  hot? Chuck in some ice.
A 2 egg yolks and whisk. A bit  too frothy? Chuck in some ice.
Whisk away for a bit, meantime the butter has visited the microwave for perhaps too long to melt, so it sits in the ice bowl before going trickling in to the sauce.
Keep whisking

 Chuck in some ice for luck while boiling half a kettle. Use the boiling water to warm a gravy jug. While the jug is warming, rest the steaks in the oven with plates and chips (almost forgot, the steaks got seared in a hot cast iron pan after being brushed with some of the melted butter).
And serve

 Nom nom. Haven't tasted Bearnaise sauce before so don't know how faithful this implementation was, but that much butter, allied with that much protein and starch can hardly fail to hit the spot. 
A week of kale and broccoli beckons.

Spanakopita and Rhubard Icecream

Doing some trial runs for catering for a the eldest boys communion.  Not my idea, being an atheist and a Protestant one at that, but sometimes it's easier to go with the flow. Anyway, I'm happy to inflict my culinary meanderings on wider selection of guinea pigs, so trying to figure out how to feed the greatest number with least  effort or margin for error.
A couple things I learnt from a previous effort along these lines (youngest ones christening - oops, I'm not a very observant atheist) - garlic bread goes down a storm and the oven is the constraining resource. So anything that can be made the day before and served cold is a boon.
Coincidentally the ever reliable Domini Kemp has a spanakopita recipe, so I'll trial that.
The recipe is simple enough, 1 kg of defrosted spinach, which looks like this once you've squeezed the beejeezus out of it

Mix with one pack of feta, a sweated onion, fennel seeds and a handful of pine nuts I fortuitously have available

Domini calls for creme fraiche but I can't find any so substitute sour cream. To be honest cream varieties are not my strong point, I got some double cream earlier by mistake but that will be more appropriate for the dessert coming up.
Ms Kemp also suggests puff pastry, but I want old school with filo pastry. Never having used this before I'm a bit curious, so unwrapping it I find this

 I toy with the idea of making a layered roulade, but not finding anything comparable on the internet. Having been badly burnt by a misconceived spinach and fish bake (pictures thankfully lost, but burnt both literally and metaphorically) decide to follow the mainstream route and simply butter the three sheets together and wrap up the filling in each

nice and easy indeed.  Bake for 30 minutes

 and serve with baby potatoes slathered in the leftover butter

Very tasty, simple and eats well the following day.  But not a goer for party food because it is too messy and   has to be served in generous portions.  Though there may be mileage in making dim sum like individual portions.  Another days work, meanwhile another glut of rhubarb needs to be dealt with, and tarts gets a bit predictable so let's try an ice cream experiment.
Firstly poach the rhubarb in the juice of one orange, a bit of vanilla sugar and caster sugar

I don't have an ice cream maker so this won't be eaten tonight. Instead set a pyrex dish in the freezer for a few hours and let the rhubarb puree cool right down, then liquidize with some frozen strawberries which will further help to cool it down

whip half a litre of cream into soft peaks then fold together in a bowl which has also served time in the freezer

 hmm, a lot more than I intended, so a plastic dish is hurriedly pressed into service. Then it's back in the freezer and a good fork around every hour or when I can remember.  And unfortunately tragedy strikes later on when late at night one fork around too many and I drop the pyrex dish. Anyway, we'll find out how it eats  tomorrow.

Loveheart Pie

Out of stock again so time to poach a chicken. The poaching liquor becomes chicken noodle soup (pictures not included) with the addition some mushrooms, lemon grass, ginger, garlic, chilli, lime, rice noodles and chicken.
Meantime, the chicken gets separated into flesh and bones (pictures deliberately omitted due to them looking like like an alien autopsy, although they do nicely show the amount of gelatin preserved by poaching. Honest).

Time to make chicken pie filling with some bacon, leeks, wine and some of the stock.

Now what to do with this?  Not pasties judging by an earlier effort at using the youngest boy's impulse purchase of some diced lamb (and he played no part in the assembly)

Instead take things easy and use some frozen puff pastry.  And here comes the genius bit, rather than randomly strewing the pastry offcuts around, roll them out again and cut them with the the smallest pastry cutter, which just happens to be a love heart.  And roll these offcuts out again, repeating process till boredom sets in

bake for 30 minutes and love heart pie!

Bare Cupboard Cooking

Grabbed some mackerel for dinner but forgot to get any veg. All that's left are a few withered specimens at the bottom of the fridge

Never fear, trusty skillet to the rescue. First, shred everything in the processor.

since the processor is in use, shred the carrots along with these chaps that were hiding at the back

(shallots by the way) and a bit of the chilli, et voila, coleslaw

Hmm, looks like I found some white cabbage as well, this is turning into a bit of a stone soup.
Back to the rosti/latke, first of all decant into the every handy muslim and squeeze the beejaz out of it while the skillet is heating up.  Less water = less cooking and more caramelisation.

Pop into the skillet, and do the invert and slide trick

then quickly fry the mackerel as the other side is cooking.

and there we have a full meal from a not actually bare cupboard after all.

Medium Rare

I have an enduring fascination with early man's diet and whether that has altered our current diet to the good  . One thing standing out from these extensive researches is that we are biologically equipped to eat raw meat and fish. which would suggest the following range of cookedness:

• Room temperature
• Seared
• Cooked
• Overcooked

It would be interesting to compare these values against the experience of someone on the frontline.

My suspicision is that medium rare will be over represented because it combines "medium" i.e. cooked, with the antithetical "rare", indicating a certain Bohemian and reckless nature.

Anyhoo, cooked a steak the other day. Intended to be rare, but the meat was so thin that it got cooked medium rare to perfection:

First time sushi

So there is a bit of salmon leftover and time to try sushi and sashimi .
Down to Fresh Market to get some Clearspring sushi price, but balk at paying big bucks for the wasabi - this comes back to haunt me.
Dig out some roasted seaweed bought a few years back in one of my Asian superstore lucky dip - can't make out any date on it but it doesn't smell too bad.
Time to follow the sushi recipe which mainly involves a rice cooker. Don't have one so wash the rice four times instead of the recommended three then stick into the smallest pan at lowest heat.
Prep the seasoning which as far as I can tell is rice vinegar reduced, sugar and a bit of salt. Go low on the salt which will again come back to haunt me.
The rice is sitting there now  time to tackle the salmon. This is where it gets weird. I've eaten raw salmon many times at restaurants, but serving it up it's like I'm worried there's some Secret Sauce these restaurants apply to raw fish.
But there can't be so sharpen up the knife and slice that baby on the bias.
Now I'm waiting on the rice to cool down, though a little voice is saying to put the fish on the hot rice to at least partially cook it. I resist but stick the rice in the freezer as the family are hungry Right Now.
Ten minutes later and it's sushi chef time - roll a rice ball, press into the salmon, wrap with seaweed, repeat.

Oh yes, season the rice with the vinegar and sugar reduction - precisely.

So how did she eat? Okay is being generous:

•  The rice was simultaneously grainy and mushy.
•  Too conservative in the seasoning so extra soy was needed. 
• The portions were 3 bite rather than 1 bit sized.
• The raw salmon was delish.
• The wasabi was sorely  missed, especially as I have a jar of raw horseradish expiring in the fridge that would have made a noble substitute
• A lot cheaper than any other sushi sources

Next time the sushi will sing

The Knowledge of Salmon

Since this blog overtook Nigella Lawson (google "bacon pavlova", preferably from my google account) I've decided to scale back on the minutiae of my kitchen. Thus Thursday's spaghetti carbonara, despite being photographed, and including the heretical notion of cooking pasta in other than a giant pan at a  rolling boil
Similarly,
Friday's veg+tinned salmon+gram flour fritters miss out. Though those babies are a bit of staple Chez Cattanach and are probably more worthy of a post than lobster ravioli.

Back to the salmon. Allegedly peasants of the 19th century used to revolt amongst other things at being fed too much salmon (similar stories exist regarding lobsters and oysters in America). Then salmon became scarce and thus desirable before being farmed and ubiquitous.

The problem with farmed salmon is it is yuck -flabby and luridly coloured. Meantime, wild salmon has become practically unobtainable.
Luckily for the committed pescavore Clare Island organic salmon is available from Kish Fish in Coolock and that fishmonger guy at Temple  Bar market.
Now it`s not cheap, nor sustainable for a farmed carnivorous fish, but it is damned tasty.
Without further ado, here are the salmon darnes baked in tinfoil with butter, fennel leaves, lemon slice and a splash of good Reisling. Served with Vichy carrots (butter, sugar and rosemary, cut on the bias - Harold McGee, does the bias cut *really* matter?). And potatoes served "as gaeligae"

Further uses for Smoked Haddock - Simple Fish Pie

Time for a one-pot wonder that won't interfere with the Wales England game -fish pie.
First off boil up some potatoes,

the sweet potato provides a bit of moist richness allowing a bit less butter.
At the same time poach the smoked haddock in milk with some aromatics

is 

 The trick here is to turn the heat off just as the milk begins to simmer.  Time to check out the rugby where, horrors, England are in the lead (I'm quarter Welsh and not just being knee-jerk anti-English).
Half time and it's mashing time - skins and all.

Meanwhile the fish is looking a bit meagre so time for some secret ingredients

The parmesan rinds  have been evicted by my wife, but one at least is reasonably mould free so it will go into the bechamel, which will begin with lightly sauteed leeks and diced chorizo

Get that sweated off a bit in a good bit of butter then a few handfuls of flour before stirring in the poaching liquid and parmessan rind

 Flake the fish (because it is barely cooked, the skinning gets a bit messy)

Time to asssemble in freezer friendly portions

Pop in the oven and just in time to see Wales deserved victory.
Game over, and just time to wash and prep the last of the spinach from the garden.

mix the spinach with a little cream and grated nutmeg for a certain je ne sais quoi and dinner is served:

(a note on portions, I was aiming at at 3x3 servings but my wife felt a little short changed)

Valentine's Day

All afternoon off to prepare tonight's romantic dinner. And mind the two boys and however many of their friends drop in.
First stop is the ever excellent Connolly's of Finglas, the smallest and best fishmonger in Dublin (lads, when this blog goes stratospheric a few fresh John Dorys will guarantee plenty of fish recipes, if you get my drift).
Result, some fresh tuna. I toy with the idea of gilding the lily with some scallops or prawns but decide to go large with tuna, since larger boy will be over it like a rash.  Haven't had tuna for a while as it's not sustainable, mmkay?
But romantic meals call for indulgence, stuff the planet and sod the grandchildren, so something endangered is getting eaten tonight.
On the bike home the meal starts to come together - seared tuna, a Vietnamese type noodle salad, chilli jam and, get this, tuna tartare as well! I'll serve a chilli jam seperately so the other parts can be child-friendly.
Then a Tiramisu to follow.   No sense getting over elaborate, I've done the seared tuna many times before and how hard can any of the other components be?
First off, pick up smaller boy and forage the remaining ingredients in the Fairview locale. Ta da!

That was Fresh Market for the veg, Kennedy's for the Italian stuff (refer to Connollys above regarding sponsporship opportunties).
Now some might say it is a bit sad photographing and blogging about your shopping, but it could have been worse - I found another bag of stuff after putting the above away and only just resisted the urge to lay everything out again.

First up is the chilli jam. I can't find any definitive version of it so have to wing an amalgam: 2 dutch chillis, 1 red onion, garlic and ginger and some tomato puree.
Larger boy wants to help, so what better test of knife skills and hand hygiene than chilli and onion brunoise?

Sweat them off for a 20 minutes then add the wet ingredients and let stew down (not going for a pectin based "proper" jam).

Quick taste and it's surprisingly hot.  I presume all that fat and sugar has extracted all the essential chilli oils, so maybe deseed the next time. While she's cooking down time to get the salad ready.  Ideally it would have been the Tiramisu first or next but to start it I need to free up a mixing bowl currently soaking the rice noodles.
(aside here - the chef at Saba had this top tip to soak noodles in warm or even cold water rather than boiling them. I've been getting mixed results with this even after going beyond his times, and to cut to the chase, these noodles end up being described as "crunchy" after 40 minutes in warm water).
Here's the salad ingredients:

And here, gulp, lurks the mandoline, like a flesh shredding ski-jump of doom

I am slightly apprenhensive about this as I want to julienne the carrots and cucumbers so won't be able to use the guard, and will have the vertical blades deployed as well as horizontal.
Plus, this has only just healed after 2 weeks

and I've just gone and done this to my right (dominant) hand.

Wonder how busy casualty get's on Valentine's Day?

Somehow survive and produce this

This gets salted, left for 30 minutes, rinsed then squeezed in muslin and blotted on kitchen paper. Incidently, highly recommend a bit of muslin in the kitchen as it comes in very handy for draining frozen spinach, drying salads etc.  Just make sure and have your spell checker on to avoid a visit from Al Quaeda.

That done, mix in the noodles and chillis and basic Thai dressing (pak choi and coriander   parsley go in just before serving to stop them getting too soft).  Basic dressing is the trinity of chilli, garlic and ginger, mixed in sesame oil, fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and/or rice vinegar.  I'll use the same dressing to briefly marinate the tuna steaks before cooking.
So here's the dressing, start of the tartare and Marsala wine reduction: schedules are slipping and it's time get the Tiramisu assembled.
A bit of cursory research finds some child friendly variants, but none appeal so it's going to be old school.
What could be more romantic than small children+alcohol+coffee+raw eggs?
So the kids help make a raw custard with mascarpone and egg whites folded in. Once again the dread yolk spot sullies the whites, but I definitely get it out this time (or do I?)

The instructions are to dip the lady's fingers in the Marsala and coffee, but "not too much". Myself and larger boy attempt this but its the blind leading the blind and we run out of reduced Marsala half way through so have to quickly (i.e. incompletely) reduce some more.
The end result, after less than the recommended hour plus chilling, is a worthy candidate for cooksuck.com

(A dairy based simulation of the Trilobite extinction event)

Back to the entree to save the day. One of the 3 tuna steaks has been firmed in the freezer to be roughly minced and mixed with half a cucumber and 1 shallot:

Time to press the marinated tuna steaks into sesame seeds, sear on the trusty cast iron pan then assemble with the cunning use of my solitary timbale. Voila!

One of my better presentations, the only let down has the jam which I attempted to pipe into artfully casual swirls but instead ended up sploging like ketchup. But it eats well, particularly with a fine 2007 Sonnenuhr Trocken Riesling from Lilac Wines.
Cheers!