Salad of lobster with octopus carpaccio, roasted watermelon, baby squid and a shellfish sauce
I approached this dish with a fair amount of trepidation. I’ve never eaten octopus before, but was willing to give it a go of course, as this was one of the main reasons for doing this project in the first place… try new things. But if you have ever seen a full on octopus in the flesh, so to speak, it looks like a giant ball of snot. I couldn’t help but think that some giant had sneezed into my hands. Seriously gross stuff!
Anyway, if you recall from the previous posts, I recently visited Billingsgate Market to purchase some supplies, and this included three components for this dish; Lobster, Octopus and Squid. I won’t go into the prep for the lobster as this has already been explained here, so I guess I will have to start with the octopus. Blergh!
Right, so you start off by cleaning the octopus under running water to get all the slime and goo off them, as well as any residual ink… and believe me, there was plenty in the ones I happened to get. There was just a constant stream of ink coming out of them, but finally it ended and I put them into a pot together with some herbs, garlic and seasoning and then covered it with cold water, and then set it to simmer for a few hours.
Octopus
Let me say the house did NOT smell nice at this point. I really did not like the smells coming out of this pot. It wasn’t pungent as such, it just hit my senses in a way which made me want to retch. Not pleasant, and it took ages for it to go away too. Wanna see what it looked like after it had cooked?
Just look at the colour of the water
Yep, that is black water people! I guess there was loads more ink in the octopus still. Anyway, I took the octopus out, sliced off the tentacles which at this point were really soft, and whilst still hot I rubbed off the skin and suckers. It was surprisingly easy really. I then added the now clean tentacles to a baking tin, trying to work quickly as the book says that if they go in cold, they may not stick together. The idea was to stack them in a pile, like a pile of logs, cover with cling film and then put them in the fridge to cool and set. It was quite easy to do but I didn’t nearly have enough tentacles to fill the tin… so I had to improvise a bit. See below:
The tentacles ready to chill
Thank God that was over. This set over night and the next day I started on the rest of the components which were relatively straight forward.
The shellfish sauce involved sweating off some shallots in a saucepan with some butter and seasoning, and then deglazing with some vermouth and reducing this before adding some shellfish stock, and then reducing this again. Finally some cream was added and the sauce was strained and set aside in a clean pan.
Shellfish sauce
Next was prepping the squid, lobster and melon. The squid was easy to do and involved pulling off the flesh from the body, taking off the head and then slicing the body into the classic rings we all know and love. Strangely very satisfying I have to say…
Squid
For the squid I had to make a tempura batter which unfortunately I didn’t photograph for some reason, but was simple enough as it involved mixing flour, cornflour, salt and pepper, sparkling water and chilled beer together… and that was it. I heated up some oil, dipped the squid rings and heads into some flour and then into the batter and deep fried for a couple of minutes until golden. These were then set aside in a warm oven for the final plating.
Next up was the melon. I sliced this up and then cut some rounds from each slice using a ring mould. I then heated a pan with some olive oil and added the lobster tail and gently fried it on all sides until lightly golden. I did the same for the melon rounds in another pan. Once cooked I set these aside in a warm place.
Lobster tail
Melon rounds
Whilst the above was going on, I had taken the octopus out the fridge and sliced some pieces off as thinly as I could using my sharpest knife. This was no easy feat as I don’t think the tentacles had set properly which is unfortunate, but for the most part it worked okay.
Slicing the octopus
I then laid these on the plates and proceeded to plate up.
I have to say I find the plating up the most enjoyable experience of any dish as you can see all your effort coming together. I sliced up the lobster tail into discs, and then laid these together with the melon rounds in alternate fashion on top of the octopus carpaccio. I laid the squid rings around the plate together with some salad leaves and then finally it was done. The shellfish sauce was served on the side.
The final dish
It did look very good I have to say. The contrast of the bright orange melon against the lobster was nothing short of stunning, and the carpaccio added a unique look to the dish. But how did it taste? Well, the octopus carpaccio, despite all my misgivings at the start of the post was probably worse than I expected. Yup, not a fan at all! I promptly scooped this to one side and carried on with the rest of the dish and it became clear to me that this is a fantastic dish, but only when the octopus is out of the equation. The melon worked so well with the lobster I feel all giddy with pleasure just rethinking the taste as I write this. It was sublime, it really was. And the squid and shellfish sauce added the finishing touch nicely. It was all melt in the mouth stuff, and before I knew it the plate was clean (With the exception of the carpaccio of course… that was going straight in the bin!)
Salad of lobster with octopus carpaccio, roasted watermelon, baby squid and a shellfish sauce… Done!
Next up: To be confirmed
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