serves
4
prep
45 minutes
cook
2:30 hours
difficulty
Ace
serves
4
people
preparation
45
minutes
cooking
2:30
hours
difficulty
Ace
level
Ingredients
- 1 giant octopus tentacle, stripped of skin
- olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 red chillies, pierced
- 2 French shallots, cut in half
- 1 lemon
- 2 bay leaves
- sprigs fresh thyme
- 3 x 150 g fillets King George whiting
- sprigs chervil
- 2 spring onions, cooked whole till soft, in salty, buttered stock (reserve the stock)
- 2 large red radishes, finely grated
For the sauce
- 1 giant oyster or king oyster mushroom
- 1 knob butter
- 1 knob fresh ginger, roughly chopped
- 1 piece galangal
- 1 garlic clove
- 4 pine mushrooms
- dry sherry
- light chicken stock
- rape leaves (sometimes sold as "cima di rape"), torn
- broad beans, shelled, blanched and peeled
Chilling time 1 hour
Instructions
Cut octopus tentacle into manageable lengths. Pour a generous amount of oil into a deep saucepan, drop in garlic, chillies and shallots to infuse while oil is heating. Once the oil is sizzling and fragrant, drop in the tentacle pieces. Halve the lemon, squeeze the juice into oil and drop in each half of remaining lemon with bay leaves and sprigs of fresh thyme. Turn heat to low, part cover to allow steam to escape. Cook until octopus is tender, for 1–2 hours. Set aside to cool.
Remove any bones from fish fillets and construct rolls by lying fillets out on plastic wrap head to toe to form a rectangular shape. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, chervil leaf, lay spring onion in the middle and spoon over radish.
Slice some of the octopus on an angle into 1cm thick slices. Lay over the spring onion. Roll and enclose with plastic wrap. Chill for at least an hour in the refrigerator.
Slice fillet roll in half then remove plastic wrap and steam rolls at very low heat over a large saucepan for about 10–15 minutes. Test, slice into discs to serve.
To make the sauce, slice oyster mushrooms thinly. Melt some butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat add the oyster mushrooms, ginger, galangal and garlic. Cook until until soft, strain over a clean saucepan and set aside the mushrooms.
In the same butter, cook sliced pine mushrooms. Add a splash of dry sherry, the left-over stock from the braised spring onions and little more chicken stock. Add rape leaf and wilt, then broad beans and warm through.
Slice whiting rolls into thick discs, one per serve. Place cooked oyster mushroom slices next to it and spoon sauce of pine mushrooms, rape and broad beans over the whiting rolls.
Cook's Notes
Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.
