Tender Octopus Kebabs

We have had an octopusy in the freezer since a visit in Stockholm early this year. Pers daughter works in the fresh fish department at a ecological oriented food store in the centre of Stockholm. She ordered the Octopus to the store before our visit to the city. They don't keep Octopus in the shop on a daily basis but are happy to order it if you say in advance. We used a recipe from "Jamie Oliver in Italy" with some own interpretations. We started by cooking the Octopus tender in its own liquid with some added ingredients.

Ingredients

Octopus, about 1.3 kg.

Olive oil, about 7 tbs.

Garlic, one whole peeled and finely sliced.

Lemon, just peal the surface of with a potato peeler.

Chilli, one fresh red, deseeded and cut in thin slices.

Parsley, 3-4 stalks finely chopped.

Salt

Black pepper

Method

Put the olive oil into a large pan and add the ingredients except for the Octopus. Heat and boil slowly for a minute or two without the garlic getting color. The add the Octopus and shake the pot to make the oil mixture cover the Octopus. At low temperature simmer the Octopus under a lid. Test from time to time with a fork if you can easily push it through the tentacle, if it feels hard you let it boil a bit longer, for us it took about 45 minutes until it felt soft enough. But be aware not to cook the Octopus too long because then it gets really shevy. When you are happy with the "softness" you can continue to the next step in the process which is making the Kebab skewers.

Ingredients

The tender cooked Octopus.

Lemon, juice from one.

Chilli, one fresh finely chopped.

Parsley, some finely chopped leaves.

Method

Cut away the tentacles from the Octopus, we discarded the body when making these skewers. Cut the tentacles in pieces and put them on skewers, remember to put them on water first if you use wooden ones. Grill the skewers over high heat to make the surface crisp, remember that the Octopus is already cooked.

Serve the skewers on a plate together with the chilli and parsley mixture. We served the Kebabs together with nice owen baked mashed potatoes using this recepi, piemontensydamessa.blogspot.fi .

The unfrozen Octopus is waiting to be cooked.

Olive oil and the other ingredients are getting read to receive the Octopus.

Octopus is now starting its slow boil process.

The Octopus is now tender and ready for eating as it is on some bread or for example to be grilled as Kebab skewers.

Pichana

Today we had our first experience with Pichana. This came from Stockmann crazy days and was from Australia, Black Angus. We were a bit surprised by the taste and texture of this meat, it was very good. Of course the marinade had something to do with it so here comes the recipe we used.

Pichana

1.2 kg Pichana, with the fat on (for 4 persons)

Marinade

1 dl olive oil

2 tbs balsamic vinegar

2 cloves of garlic, chopped in pieces

1/2 chili, according to taste, chopped in pieces

fresh thyme, 2 tbs

fresh rosemary 2 tbs

Method

Put all ingredients in a mixer and mix to make a sauce that you brush on to the Pichana. You can cut the Pichana in beefs, across the fibers before you put it into the marinade or you can marinade the beef in one piece if you want. Let the meat marinate overnight, or at least 8 hours.

Fry the meat in a grill pan or on the grill, just to get a nice burned surface. Then put the meat in the oven with a thermometer in the thickest part. When the temperature has reached 51 C take the meat out and let it rest for 5 minutes.

Serve the meat with your favorite potatoes or salad. We had oven potatoes and garlic butter together with arugula/ parmesan salad with the meat.

Table bread, the no mashine version

This bread gets very similar to the the table bread that you need to knead for a long time in a machine to get ready. The difference is that this bread does not need any machine at all, instead we use time to get the dough ready.

Table bread

280 gr water, lukewarm
350 gr flour, high protein flour
6 gr yeast
8 gr salt

Method

Dissolve the yeast in the water, add flour and salt and mix with spoon until you have a solid dough. This takes about 30 seconds. Cover the bowl with some lid or plastics. After 45 minutes wet your fingers with water and fold the dough from left to the middle and then from right to the middle, from the top to the middle and from the bottom to the middle. Do this two more times with 45 minutes interval. After 3 hours you take the dough out and gently shape it to a loaf. Let the loaf grow for 1 hour- Preheat the oven to highest temp after 30 minutes and keep a baking tray in the oven to get warm. Gently transfer the loaf to the hot baking tray and spray plenty of water in to the oven. Put the oven temperature to 250 C, and after 10 minutes lower the temp to 200 C. After 20 minutes open the hatch to let steam out, repeat that every 10 minutes until the bread has been about  40 minutes in the oven. Leave the bread a bit longer in the oven if you like a hard crust.

Soffrito, Italian tomato sauce

This is a lovely and very easy to make tomato sauce, the only thing you need is time. By cooking the vegetables slowly over low heat they produce the sweetness that goes so well with the tomatoes and the wine. Try to chop the ingredients as small as possible, but of course if you prefer bigger pieces than you do it that way.

Soffrito

to fry for about 30 minutes:

1 big onion, finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 big carrot finely cut to small cubes

1 chili, according to taste

1 red bell pepper, finely chopped

3 bay leaves finely chopped

to the oven at 150 C for about 1 hour:

the fried vegetables

Two cans of eco tomatoes, whole and skinned.2 tsb of fresh Thyme

2 dl of red wine

Method

Chop the vegetables and fry on low temperature for 30 minutes. Add the tomatoes, the wine and the chopped thyme to the pot and put it in the oven at 150 C for about one hour. Break the tomatoes with a fork or put the sauce to a mixer for a smooth sauce. Put in a pot, cook for about 20 minutes at low temperature until it gets the texture that you want. Then you can use this sauce for many different dishes, for example to Bolognese or Pizza or where ever you need a tomato sauce and of course it is perfect to keep in the freezer, you can just double or triple the recipe and just fill the freezer.

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Vegetables swetting in the pan for 30 minutes.

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Tomatoes, wine and thyme added, now into the oven for an hour at 150 C.

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Now out of the oven, break up the tomatoes with a fork or put the whole thing to a mixer and mix to your preferd texture.

Marinated Flank steak

We like the Flank steak very much, unfortunately it can be a bit difficult to find in the local food store but should be possible to find at larger stores or in food markets. This is a thin piece of meat from the belly of the animal. There are two things to remember when you use this meat, first of all do not overcook the meat, an inner temperature of 55 C gives a perfect result. The other thing to remember is to cut the meat in thin slices across the meat fibres after the cooking, if you cut along the fibres you get a very very chewy piece of meat. This meat is also perfect for marinating we really recommend that for best result and that was what we did the other day, here comes the recipe.

Flank steak, about 600 gram for 4 persons.

Marinade

1/2 dl soya

1/2 dl balsamic vinegar

1/2 dl olive oil

2 cloves of garlic

2 tbs of fresh thyme

Method

Mix the ingredients for the marinade. Cover the meat with the marinade and let it stay in the refrigerator for at least two hours. Heat a grill pan to very hot and quickly roast the meat on both sides. Put a steak thermometer in the fattest part of the meat and transfer it to a frying pan that is kept on low to medium heat and let the meat fry until inner temp is 55 C. Put the meat on a cutting board and let it rest for about 10 minutes before you cut in about 5 mm thick slices. Serve with your favorite potatoes and some nice green salad.

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Beef ready for the refrigerator.

Marinated beef heart

Beef heart is a delicious and easy to make beef, just remember to keep it between rare and medium rather than medium to well done. If you fry it too long it will get a bit hard and taste a bit towards liver.

Ingredients:

One trimmed beef heart (Make sure to take away all fat and tissues, should only be meet left.)

Marinade:

1 dl Japanese soya

Juice from one lemon

Juice from two limes

2 tbs tomato puree

2 tbs honey

chilli according to your preferences

2 garlic cloves finely chopped

1 tsp cumin crushed

1/2 tsp liquid smoke

Method:

Mix the ingredients for the marinade in a bowl and let it rest for a while. Trim the heart and cut the meat in 1 cm thick slices across the fibres. Add the meat to the marinade and mix the meat and marinade making sure the meat has been covered with the marinade. Leave the meat in the marinade for at least two hours, up to 8 hours. Heat a grill pan and grill the meat about 2 minutes on each side. We served the heart together with raw fried potatoes and vegetables.

Table bread

 
Pers baking day, today he is baking a straightforward white table bread. This is a little bit special dough to handle but if you do it right the resulting bread is very nice. So some words of precautions, this is a very very wet dough that needs a lot of kneading at high speed to change from floating to a somewhat more jelly state. It also requires a strong, high protein, flour. Best is to use Manitoba Cream if you can find that in the shop. In Sweden it should be easy to find. It is important to use a flour with a high protein percentage, otherwise it may be difficult to get the dough together. You also need a machine that can knead the dough at high speed.

Table bread.

500 grams flour (high in protein)
500 grams water (room temperature)
12 grams yeast
12 grams salt
5 grams butter (room temperature)

Resolve the yeast in the water and then add the flour and salt. Knead the dough in the machine at highest possible speed until the dough start to leave the bowl. This can take between 15 to 20 minutes depending on what kind of machine you use, sometimes it may take longer time but it is important that you work the dough until it starts to bang the walls of the bowl. As soon as it shows signs of leaving the bowls bottom add the butter and let the machine go for about 4 minutes more.

When the dough is ready transfer it to a plastic bowl or container that has been oiled with some neutral food oil. Cover with a lid or plastic wrap. Let the dough rest for about one hour.

Put plenty of flour on the baking tray, this is a very wet dough and will stick to everything it can stick to if you don't cover the surface with flour. It is important to handle the dough gently so that the bubbles stay inside the dough. Carefully let the dough pour out of the plastic container on top of the flour. Fold the edges on to the centre of the top of the dough, so you end up with a flour covered round dough. Cut the dough in two pieces and carefully close the wet area by pushing the flour covered sides up over the wet surface so that you end up with an almost loaf shaped dough. Put the dough pieces on a baking paper with the closed area down. Use your hands to shape the loaves by carefully pushing the dough, sort of under itself, from the sides. Let the loaves rest for about one hour. After 30 minutes preheat the oven to its highest temperature. If you have a pizza or baking stone place that in the lower part of the oven, otherwise put a baking plate in the oven to make it hot.

Transfer the loaves to the stone/plate gently, spray plenty of water with a squirting bottle in to the oven. Put the oven temperature to 250 C. After 10 minutes lower the temperature to 200 C. Let the loaves stay at least 30 minutes in the oven after that. I like a crispy crust so I let them stay around 50 minutes in the owen. It is also good to open the hatch after 20 minutes to let some steam out, and then repeat that with 10 minutes intervals until the bread is ready. Let the loaves get cool on a grid.

This is what I use, I use a scale because I like to get the same starting point every time I bake this bread. Of course you can also recalculate into volumes instead of weight.

This is how the dough looks like after 5 minutes of full speed kneading.

This is how the dough looks like when it is close to ready. As you can see the dough has started to leave the bowl. Now I put the butter in and let it go for 4 minutes.

The dough is ready.

Lid on, now rest for one hour.

After one hour.

Baking tray is waiting, much flour.

After folding the "wet part" into itself you get a flour covered dough.

Loaves shaped, somehow.

Loaves after one hour.

Loaves after 50 minutes in the oven.

This is how they came out this time.

Pancake day buns

Shrove day and we made those buns from this recepi at svt.se: http://www.svt.se/gomorron-sverige/jespers-smarriga-semlor Maybe ours was not just as perfect looking but still tasted very good. Happy pancake day all friends!

Stracotto alla Fiorentina

 
 As you can see from our blog description, we are big fans of Italian food. We also  like to visit Italy as often as we can. One of Paulas favorite regions in Italy is Toscana. Following a visit there she picked up a cook book  with recepies collected from Toscana. The title of that book is Flavours from Toscana. The recepi for the Stracotto alla Fiorentina comes from this book, we made this dish with a few adjustments.

 Stracotto alla Fiorentina.

1.2 Kg beef (We used flank steak.)
0.5 dl  olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped in small peaces
2 carrots, chopped in small peaces
2 cloves of garlic (We used more, we really like garlic.)
50 grams dried boletes (Mushrooms, we did not have those.)
2 bay leafs
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
4 sprigs of fresh sage
3 dl red wine
1 liter beef stock
seasalt
blackpepper

Season the beef with salt and blackpepper. Frie quickly to brown the surface and then transfer the beef to a plate. Put the onion together with the garlic, mushrooms, carrot, celery and the herbs in a pot on the stove.  Poach at low temperature, blend for about 15 minutes. Add the wine to the pot and warm to get the alkohol out. Add the beef stock and blend. Then add the beef to the pot. Cover the pot with baking paper and a lid before putting it to the owen at 175 degrees for at least 3 hours. When ready take up the beef and slice it. Put the rest of the contents in the pot in a mixer and mix it. Heat the sauce and add spices if you like. Pore the sauce on top of the meat. Serve together with nice Italian country bread.

We served polenta together with this dish. We used a recepie from a Jamie Oliver book. We used flak steak as beef in this dish but you can use many different kinds of beef. Don´t forget to put in the celery, it gives very good flavoring to this dish. 

Per likes to bake and has found a nice and simple way of baking an Italian style country bread. Next we will but that recepi here.