Trying New Things

Evil

Went running in Central Park with Evil Twin #2 today. Good run... fairly hot day... by the late afternoon, I was really hungry. But I didn't know what to eat!

I walked down to the Fairway on to see what was up. My original plan was to buy a black seabass and steam it Chinese style and have it with rice. But when I got there, I saw that they had wild baby octopus! These little guys are like 2 inches big. So cute. So I decided to go with the baby octopus. Here's how it went down...

- Render 3 slices of bacon over medium-low til the bacon is almost crisp and the fat is all liquid.

- Add half a diced onion and cook til the onions are almost translucent.

- Add two cloves of garlic, sliced.

- Add one serrano chili, sliced thin.

- Let these guys cook together for a bit and when they're all chillin' out together, add a 28 oz can of whole tomatoes (but crush the tomatoes by hand before you add them); bring to a simmer and let simmer for about 20 minutes.

- Meanwhile, prepare the baby octopus with a little bit of olive oil and salt. Place the baby octopus on a baking plan.

- When the sauce is almost done, stick the baby octopus in a broiler and broil til the little guys have a bit of a black char on the edges.

- Turn off the heat for the sauce and then stir in some rough chopped basil. The residual heat will wilt them nicely.

- Pull the little guys out, and put some french baguette in the oven to toast them up real quick.

- Spoon the sauce onto a large plate, put the almost charred little baby octopus on top, and serve with the toasted french baguette.

So how did it turn out tonight? Pretty good... I was generally happy with the result, especially since I've never cooked baby octopus before and also since I wasn't working off of a recipe. The thing that could have been better is the cooking time of the baby octopus. I should have put those little guys closer to the heat when I broiled them so they could cook up faster. That would have made the meat a bit more tender. Oh well... lessons learned.