Octopus, Paprika and Cheese
Off to Tott I go after eating lunch at Edward’s.
What a lucky boy I am as I have 730 SGD to spend on myself for me leaving present from BT – wow!!!
So with a boot full of new gear, and ideas coming from my mate Edward at My Little Spanish Place – I got creative and cooked three dishes for dinner tonight for family Kennett – minus one, as Ollie’s last night of panto is tonight. Bless him. So looking forward to having him back with us.
Dish No.1 – Octopus served in the pan
Truly inspired by Edward, and actually using some paprika I bought from his restaurant I got creative. The prawn dish he made, the one served at the table in the pan straight from the oven gave me some ideas. So I bought a couple of fairly deep, small pans with metal handles so they could go in to the oven as well. The girls ate this and said bloody spice, but bloody delicious.
I did two pans full, 1 for Mary and 1 for Glenda – I’ll explain what you need for one pan, or one person;
- 1 tin of octopus in oil – small tin, really enough for one person as a starter (could be any tinned fish I suppose)
- 2 cloves of garlic finely sliced
- 2 teaspoons of smoky paprika – what I bought from Edward was the ‘hot’ version and yes indeed it most certainly was
- some smoked cheese that I simply cut in to strips to make it easier to melt – to be honest any cheese will likely do
- a pinch of salt
Pretty simple this.
Get the over on at 250.
Take your little pan and pour in the octopus and oil straight form the tin and get that on the fire.
When it starts bubbling away, add the garlic and the paprika and give her little stir.
Let this bubble for a while as the flavours will be muddling nicely. Then take the cheese strips and lay them over the top of the octopus. One you have done that, off the gas and in the oven until the cheese melts and and then serve straight from the pan at that table.
Make sure you give warning to hot handles though.
Dish No.2 – who shall have a little fishy…
Very quick dish this one – and basically made for Amy as a snack before dinner kicked in.
- a tray of white bait fishes – eyes, fins, head the lot
- about 2 inches of cooking oil in a pan
- a good pinch of sea salt
Get the oil on and piping hot.
Add in the fish, and stir every now and then to stop them sticking.
When fire crispy and light golden scoop them out with a strainer and set them on some kitchen towel to drain off the excess oil.
Give them a sparkling of salt and serve em up – yep that simple.
They went down a storm!!!
Dish No.3 – beef thing I made up, very delicious though
And the final dish of the day. A little more complex than the others above as it is ‘the main’, but really was very delicious, and still I think relatively easy to make as you’ll see from the below.
- 3 rib eye steaks that I trimmed, then bashed with tenderising hammer and sliced in to bite sized strips
- 2 finely sliced Portobello mushrooms
- 1 knob of ghee or normal butter
- 1 packet of broccoli tops that I trimmed off the stems
- 2 finely sliced red onion
- 3 finely slices garlic cloves
- 1 packet of bean sprouts
- 150ml of Bull-Dog vegetable fruit sauce, or Tonkatsu sauce – I think you can get this at most supermarkets now. Or HP Sauce
- 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
- 1 good pinch salt
- 1 small pinch of ground white pepper
- 1/2 cup of water
- 2 tablespoons of corn starch dissolved in a tablespoon or so of cold water
- 1 cup deep fried shallots
And we’re off.
Wok on the heat, add some olive oil and some ghee and fry off the onion and garlic until browning.
Add in the beef, the broccoli, the mushrooms, the Bull-Dog sauce and Worcestershire sauce, the salt and pepper and stir that up until you can see that the need is cooked through. Not overcooked, just cooked through. You can always fish a piece out and cut it in half to check.
Add in the water and that will make a gravy, then the corn starch to really thicken the gravy up. Nearly done now.
Add in the bean sprouts right at the end as they need a minute tops only. Shake in the deep fried shallots.
Serve with some plain white rice.
Absolutely delicious this one – really tasty.
