' 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.

' faux MICRO CHEESE BURGER & FRIES .'

 Caramel & Sesame seed macaron filled with Chocolate & Almond patty, Salted caramel slice, Diced Apple and Raspberry ketchup, served with Apple & Arrowroot fries. 

                  This dish is another sweets entry with a straight forward play on food or 'food play'. I've seen this dish or I've seen the macaron burger similar being served on degustation menus but I thought I'd go a step further and try recreate visually something we all are familiar with, that fast food giant. My macaron making experience from scratch was many many years ago and the macarons that I used to make were the traditional plain almond type, not the the modern day colourful types. So sucking in my pride I've used the help of Adriano Zumbo and his macaron mix, I chose the salted caramel variety to get the best resemblence of a seeded bun as I could, for the overall effect. The surprise for me that came from this dish was the apple fries, which upon eating at first I thought tasted like regular french fries. Weather my mind was tricking my taste buds or by-passing my taste buds altogether and operating purely from associated experience but I thought I was eating McDonalds fries and it wasn't until the aftertaste left on my palate that tasted of flavours similar to apple danish and with the raspberry sauce, that I realised this was part of a tasty dessert and how easily your mind can be tricked even if you know the trick.                                      
                 To make this food player I began by making the macaron shells the night before as per the recipe on the packet. As the piped mixture were resting on their trays before backing I sprinkled half of them with sesame seeds and baked them off for 16-18 minutes in a 150 deg. c oven before removing and allowing to cool. The shells were the placed in to a airtight container and stored in the fridge over night. The next day I began with the cheese burger fillings, in a bowl I mixed together melted milk chocolate, melted butter, almond meal and homestyle Orio cookie crumb. After forming the mix into a ball or dough like consistency I formed little patty rounds and placed them on the bottom half of the macaron as these were the meat patties. Next I used the caramel supplied in the kit and rolled some out thinly between two sheets of baking paper. I then cut little squares of the caramel slice to match the size of the patties and these were arranged on top of the patties to resemble melted sliced cheese. The raspberry coulis was from an older preparation but with some of this I added a little balsamic vinegar to cut the sweetness of the sauce and the entire dish and also give the coulis a more authentic ketchup look. The diced onions on the burger are made from really finely diced apple. The last preparation was the fries and all along I wanted to use apple as the potato substitute and I was just going to simply slice the apple julienne and fry them in hot oil. And it wasn't until I was cutting them I thought of the idea of frying them in a starch to give them more rigidness and structure. So I coated some in arrowroot flour and did a test batch and to my surprise they came up looking like a real french fry. I coated the rest and my stumbles through cooking rewarded me and became the final product you see.