Doug does dinner

We have now dropped down to Covid level 1 here, but this post was written while we were at level two and mostly homebound. That had been messing with my ability to get pictures and do posts for my blog. I've still got a few done and in the pipeline, but this time, to help stretch them out, I think I'll toss in a cooking post.

I've been wanting to try a couple of things lately, and yesterday, I decided it was time. Jeanne took the day off from cooking and I did dinner. The boys are at their dad's and Allie was out.  Just us two to cook for.  

I have always wanted to make French onion soup. I have loved it in restaurants, but never had it at home.  This was my attempt.  

The broth was a box of Campbell's, and I simmered pieces of  a trimmed beef cheek to make it even beefier.  

We don't have any of those individual crocks that restaurants serve it in so I used a small casserole dish. It worked just fine.  

I was pleased with it, but I learned some things that I will do differently when I make it again. 

• I needed more broth. What I had was plenty rich, but I needed more of it.
• I will make some croutons to put on top of the soup. It'll be easier to eat than with slices of bread across the top. I'll use Zeke's Turkish bread because of its crustiness.  
• The Gruyere cheese was terrific. No change there. Maybe just more of it as well. I had a big block of it, and once shredded, it looked like a lot. As you see in the photo however, it looked a little wanting after being melted. 

For our main course, I had decided on Spanish octopus with potatoes. I started my prep work on the octopus yesterday....

Our seafood store had just the size I needed, frozen in little bags. 

I made up the cooking sauce and boiled 'el pulpo' very gently for about an hour.  Turned it over a couple of times. 

(You don't need to beat it on a rock or use a pressure cooker) 

I let it cool down while in the sauce and then put the whole works in the fridge overnight.  

Today, I took it out of the cold sauce and continued.

A very important step is to remove as much of the purple skin as possible. The picture above shows the pieces with cooking sauce and skin still on. I found this easy to do under running water. I didn't get every speck of it, but probably 90%. That turned out to be fine.  

The next step consisted of putting a light coating of olive oil on the pieces and dropping them on to a very hot skillet. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of this step. The idea is to sear them on both sides. In fact, a bit of charring is what you're after .  When I do it again, I'll have my pan even hotter.  I very much liked the crunchy bits on the tentacles. (from the searing) 

The cooking sauce from yesterday was reheated to the boil and strained. I then added the juice of half a lemon, a drizzling of olive oil, and whisked it all together. 

Here it is. The guy who did the video on Youtube for this recipe said that octopus and potatoes go well together. He was right.  

The spuds were boiled part way and then oven roasted with olive oil and garlic salt. 

Potatoes at the bottom, octopus artfully (?) arranged, a little parsley to make it look fancy, and sauce over it all.  

If you like octopus, (or would like to try it) this would be a good way to go. Octopus cooked this way was very firm, (as it always is) but not tough at all. Mild tasting. 

I might add some pepper flakes to the cooking sauce the next time I make this. Spanish food is fairly bland and this could have used a little zing. The other improvement I can imagine would be to sear the tentacles on a smoking hot grill for added flavor.  A drop or two of Liquid Smoke in the sauce might work too.  

It's clear to me that I'm going to have to try this one again some time with my refinements.   

We enjoyed our meal tremendously. The cooking sauce called for just a half cup of white wine so the rest accompanied the meal.

Here's the video, just in case you're interested.        -djf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onCfFc8FNr8