one dinner, ten legs: octopus and woodcock

okay so the post title is a little white lie since whilst it is true that tonight's quarry had, at one point in time between them, ten legs, i did not eat all ten legs. in fact, i probably only ate about three quarters of one leg. maybe one entire leg, it was hard to tell. this is a story of a mismatched meal, that of octopus salad followed by a woodcock roast on toast.

looking for mayonnaise in a local supermarket i was wandering along those aisles that are half freezer and then half sauces, as well as various crap in jars and tins like spam and lunch tongue etc.., above. the mayonnaise escaped my eyes though a little certain box did not. tinned octopus. the first thoughts springing to my mind were 'bleurgh' and 'hmm'. 'hmm' won and i picked up the box and purchased it. said box sat in my cupboard for a long time, until tonight. i had put off the inevitable for long enough, it was time to brave the tinned octopus.i was really worried about this one. i've eaten squid before and had a really horrible experience. i had to assume octopus was going to be similar - slimy and chewy and rubbery, ew. all the textures that you do not want in your mouth. upon opening the tin i braced for the worst. oddly enough a sweet smell arose from within reminding me somewhat of sweetcorn. or was it tuna. maybe i thought of sweetcorn because it smelt like tuna and we all know sweetcorn and tuna were made for each other. surprise over and i needed to think of a salad. lois and i had grated some carrot for use later with the woodcock, so i nicked some and married it with spinach leaves. i also bust out some wonderfully hot pickled chillis that my parents had bought me for christmas alongside chilli jams and such. yumyum. a salad dressing of olive oil, chilli flakes and lots of freshly squeezed lime was also created.

some olive oil and lime juice were heated in a pan til they were screaming at me to throw the octopus in, and in the pieces went, but only to flash fry. once they looked, er, differentish i threw them in with the salad, whacked in some dressing and served it up smartish.

the octopus itself, whilst cooking, had offered a glimpse of it's texture as i prodded it about with a big spoon. it appeared to be solid rather than slimy, but with the same texture as tuna when i pressed it, breaking apart easily. thank goodness - no chewy rubber for me! i threw a slice of tentacle, suckers and all, into my mouth and chewed. this underwater weirdo tasted like some sort of mega-tuna. it was really meaty and rather nice! i am so glad it wasn't terrible. then the chilli hit and my mouth was on fire, but a good fire.

with no time to waste lois and i were onto the woodcock, these little critters coming from the same delivery i got yesterday from the wild meat company. whacking them on a rather dirty baking tray (notice the dirty kitchen theme in my pictures, le shock!) i smothered them in a butter/flour/basil lotion before tucking them into a single rasher of bacon each, plus more basil on top. never too much basil.

whilst the little dudes were cooking for about 25 minutes, lois made some crazy special gravy from stock, grated carrots, sliced onions, something yellow and bay leaves. and probably some other stuff but i wasn't watching i'm sorry to say! maybe a bit of cornflour, yeah. anyway. we popped some bread into the toaster and when it popped right back out all browned up and whatnot i put them on a plate, adding some spinach leaves atop the bread, drizzling a bit of a woodcock juices and then laying the bird on top this nest. ooh look at me with my nest theme recently. a splash or three of the gravy over the top and it was complete.

the woodcock had a deep taste to it that was quite heavy but really good. it was difficult to manipulate on the plate but once you got hacking at it in the right way you could really pick it clean! 25 minutes cooked it to just about medium rare, a lovely pink meat which i recommend. having it on toast was quite weird but managed to work! the entire meal itself, whilst odd, was brilliant. not only because i got two strikes but because i have never had a meal consisting of a sea and an air creature before, hurray!

and i thought i would end this tale by showing you the mug that my wonderful boss (kate - is that better?) gave to me today, she said it suited me to a tee (or should that be tea. oh yes i did). i think it does, don't you?