Family Octopus & Chips

And so tonight is Family Octopus and Chips night. I type as the chips are chipping and the octopus is having it's final few minutes in the oven. Very exciting for an octopod fan. The gals keep running in to see if it's ready and I think the lovely brownie sat waiting on the side is only a slight distraction! The whole reason why the gals are having this is that I have literally been begged. When Biggie goes to the supermarket with me, she asks loads of questions about food and I'm not shy to give the answers, believing it's much better for kids to know where their food is from and how it got there. So when she asks the fishmonger (usually a very young lad, not far out of school) how exactly did the octopus die, I don't curtail the answer, indeed if he doesn't give it straight I will interrupt! Here she is, pictured below, helping me to wash one before I cleaned it out earlier this year. I love it that she's so confident with food.

Biggie cleaning octopus for tea



 

So we made the brownies this morning, using a Barefoot recipe again - as I mentioned previously, Husband#1 has an obsession and the gals are often to be seen reading her books, so I had little choice. I have no problem with Ina, but I have to say I've a few recipes which haven't worked out for me and that puts me off. Husband#1 and Ina are synchronised perfectly and anything she can do...It sounded quite complicated and faffy, but actually it was really straight forward and any waiting time mentioned in the book is really short and almost unnecessary. By the time they'd baked the smell was delightful. So I covered in a caramel sauce that I think would make Ina's hair curl, but it was all that was available to me and I'll have to do better in the shops next time - I may even make one myself - but it worked and was so, so good. In fact, we were planning a late night chocolatey treat, but these brownies are so rich, they will do. And I can't wait to add a glass of red wine to the mix...Diet? What diet?

 

 

And finally, the pièce de résistance: Octopus and Chips. Using a (Sir) Rick Stein method of cooking, I out the octopus in a Dutch oven with about 100ml of olive oil (there was about 1300g of octopus, two large ones) and placed in the over on 150* for about 2 hours. In fact it was more than enough time to have a lovely walk out with the gals. Booboo's pushchair (broken at the caravan) went to the tip this morning and even though we did the extra long walk of about forty-five minutes, she did it a treat. We even managed to get a look at the chicken coop on the local allotments - I think we may have some rescue battery hens coming to live with us in Spring! We arrived back to a lovely, if unrecognisable, roasting smell. It doesn't smell fishy, but pleasantly promising something which is going to be very satisfying. I prepared some potatoes for chipping (I use my deep fat fryer, as I feel it's safer) and made some aioli - just a bit of Hellmann's, a clove of garlic and the juice of half a lemon. Once cooked, I drained the octopus, chopped it up and sprinkled with smoked paprika and (for the adults only) some cayenne pepper. Both girls ate with gusto and ketchup, preferring that to aioli, which I don't mind! They ate under their own steam and enjoyed it: that's what I like.