' BLACK - SEA OLIVES .'

 Baby Octopus heads cooked in a mixture of mirepoix & squid ink and marinated in olive brine served with Extra Virgin  cold-pressed Olive oil, Red chilli paste and micro Oregano leaves.  

                 This Mediterranean inspired hors d'oeuvre was a clever use of a by-product to another dish. So if you haven't guessed it by now, you are looking at baby octopus heads that look like olives and not black olives stuffed with octopus. I was experimenting with a Japanese dish that only required the tentacles of the octopuses and was left with the severed heads, when I remembered I had archived a recipe I'd seen for olive brined octopus heads about 4 or 5 years ago. These brined heads are absolutely divine for someone that enjoys seafood and mediterranean flavours. If you like marinated octopus are baby octopus grilled on the barbecue then this is a must try as it takes the ordinary marinated octopus for a ride, its fantastic with crusty bread rubbed with a clove of garlic or just on their own with the accompaniments of a good olive oil, some chilli paste and fresh oregano. I think next time that I purchase baby octopus I will be looking for a recipe to make something with the tentacles which will become the by-product of the heads used for this dish. The recipe below has been scaled for about 12-15 octopus heads and could quite possible do enough for 30-35 heads.
                 To make the olive brined black octopus heads was a journey of anticipation the whole time, beginning with placing the washed severed octopus heads into a small saucepan together with mirepoix sauteed in butter which are aromatics, a combination of diced celery (1 stick), carrot (1 small) and onion (1 small) . I also added 1 bay leaf, sprigs of fresh thyme, a piece of orange peel zest, salt, pepper, enough water to cover the heads, which for me was 1 metric cup and 1 tbsp of squid ink. This was simmered gently on a low heat for an hour covered. While this was happening my mouth was salivating from the smell in the air and after an hour I was ready to just make pasta and run the octopus and its sauce through the pasta and just eat them then and their. I strained the contents of the saucepan, discarding the solids except for reserving the now shrunken octopus heads and returning the strained liquid back to the stove and reduced the liquid down to a syrupy consistency of about 2-3 tablespoons in quantity. I returned the heads back to the saucepan of reduced liquid to coat them in the sauce, this was then allowed to cool completely. Then in a sterilised jar with fitting lid a scraped the heads and the contents of the saucepan and poured in enough olive brine from brined olives to cover the heads, about 1/2 a cup. I then screwed the lid of the jar on tight before shaking the contents and placing in the fridge to marinate for 24 hours, shaking every 6-8 hours to mix the squid ink which tends to sink to the bottom. A day latter the heads had blackened a bit, but to get the black shiny look I coated the heads in a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice and warmed squid ink just before serving. The oregano was from the garden and is a white greek variety, the chilli paste is just that red chillies pureed to a paste.

' 53 deg . C . LAMB SOUVLAKI in GRAPE LEAF .'

53 degree C. Sous vide cooked Tassie Royal Lamb Souvlaki in Grapevine Leaf served with Minted Greek yoghurt , Preserved lemon , Salted capers , Black garlic paste , Fried parsley and fresh oregano.

                  During the week I visited my favourite independent grocers 'food fantasy' after work. I love going to this humble little food hub and its been a few weeks now that I had paid a visit to the store. A different delicacies were on offer, I picked up a pack of brined grapevine leaves ( good,big,green ) about a dozen in total for $2.20 AUS. While I was in the store foraging I came across fresh Kalamata olives and when I asked one of the staff what was involved in the prep of the olives, he went out the back and got the little old Italian lady. Familiar with my face she talked me through the four week process of brining the olives while hand selecting me a half kilo into a bag that I'd requested. The olives were $6 a kg. costing me $3 AUS. for my Kalamata olives. So I guess the trip to the 'food fantasy' and the butchers for the quality piece of free ranging grass-fed lamb from greener pastures of Tasmania have been the inspirations of this Mediterranean flavoured cuisine.                                                          
                 This was a very simple dish to make I began by marinating the lamb overnight in the fridge in a vacuum sealed pouch containing butter, dried oregano, smoked paprika, dried thyme, salt, white pepper, a pinch of cumin and a little garlic paste. The next day I set the sous vide machine to a water bath temperature of 53 degrees C. and cooked the pouch of souvlaki marinated lamb for one hour. during this time I prepped the accompaniments firstly the minted yoghurt was a mixture of greek yoghurt, fresh mint from the garden finely chopped, a little garlic paste, drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lime juice before being lightly seasoned with salt. To make the black garlic paste I simply blended black garlic with a little olive oil to form a puree. The preserved lemons was an earlier prep, I mean way earlier, like this time last year or earlier. These are simply preserved over time in jars packed with salt and filled with lemon syrup. Over the time the skins soften and the pulp turns to the preserving liquor it is the skins that are scraped back and rinsed before being added whole or diced into dishes to give an up lifting citrus element to the dish. The capers were store bought but have been drained and mixed with himalayan pint salt in a container in the fridge for a number of months now. Once the lamb was ready I removed the lamb from the pouch and straight into a hot pan with the juices of the pouch poured over the lamb while it quickly seared on both sides of the fillet. Once the outside of the meats proteins had caramelised I removed the fillet from the pan placing it straight at the bottom of a spread brined grapevine leaf on a cutting board. The lamb was then rolled in the leaf and returned to a hot pan with a little olive oil to cook the outsides of the leaf, while this was cooking a placed some sprigs of parsley in the hot oil to crisp up. Both the parsley sprigs and the rolled lamb were removed once cooked and left to rest for 3-4 minutes. The parsley was then seasoned with smoked cypress sea salt.                  
                I presented this plate by making a series of random swipes with the minted greek yoghurt. I then sliced the grapevine leaf wrapped souvlaki lamb in to various widths and strategically arranged them around the plate displaying the beautiful perfectly evenly cooked lamb contrasted by the dark green vine leaf. I then added the accompaniments of salted capers, preserved lemons, black garlic paste, the crunchy fried parsley and to finish the dish fresh micro oregano leaves from the garden.