Mister's test kitchen - Mothers Day

To cook for someone is to show them you love them, that I firmly believe in. My mother and father fostered my absolute obsession for food by cooking delicious and irresistible dishes for me and in turn I've picked up their way of expressing affection. I fondly remember a time when I was first dating the Mrs, I had cooked vegetarian lasagna for her. I remember this because I believe this is what won her over, not because the lasagna was good (at least I don't remember it being good but she seemed to love it) but because she watched me carefully assemble it and present it to her.

That's why almost every mothers day, I roll up my sleeves and cook a feast for dear mother chopstick (though I have to admit I'm just as excited to cook as it's an excuse for me to test out my ideas). This year I decided to do a four course meal: Prawn Bisque, Seared scallops w/ kombu butter, Braised octopus w/ spiced carrot puree and finally, steak with red wine jus.

I started really early (much earlier than I probably needed to but I prefer being ready to being flustered) and decided the first thing I would make was the soup.

I'm rather proud of my bisque as it's one of the dishes I've gained my father's professional approval on. If a chef you respect says your soup is good, it probably is. It really wasn't hard to make: Peel the prawns and retain the shells so you can fry them up with celery, onions and carrots. Make sure you fry them up real good, then it's just adding a cup of dry white wine, lots of vege/fish stock, sweet paprika, a can of peeled tomatoes and then reduce. Once you're about to serve then add the cream.

Yes....bubble away, my pretty.

Added puff pastry for good measure. For HK people, it just kicks it up a notch.

Look at all the goodness.

You know you want it

The scallops were a bit more difficult in that I needed to prepare the kombu butter ahead of time. For that I followed Dan Hong's recipe: http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/grilled-king-prawns-kombu-butter. After you make the kombu butter, just keep it cold until you need it.

When it comes time to serve, just sear the scallops in hot oil. Easiest was is 2 min on one side and a minute on the other. Finish with the melted kombu butter and garnish with aonori.

Dish I was most proud of that night.

The octopus is where I believe I made major errors. Firstly, I tried to braise it in a pressure cooker. Learn from my mistakes: do NOT pressure cook it. Octopus will get heaps rubbery under pressure. It's one of those things that will take a really slow simmer to get right. Second error: I didn't add the right ingredients to my braising liquid. My liquid consisted of red wine, thyme, garlic cloves, bay leaves and honey...and that was it. This meant the end result was rubbery octopus that was too intense in the red wine flavor. Next time I'll add some fruits (limes/lemons & oranges) as well as a lot of water to thin out the braising liquid. Puree was fine though.

The final course of the night was the steak which I cooked in my stainless steel frying pan. The reason I used this pan instead of the griddle pan was because I wanted to get a pan sauce going. After you sear the steaks and get them to your desired done-ness, take them out and rest them on a plate (Absolutely crucial to rest steaks). As they're resting, soak up some oil out of the pan if you have too much and then add dry red wine to flambe it. This will deglaze the bottom of the pan and allow you to scrap off all the fond. Add a couple of cloves of garlic with the skin on and some thyme. As the sauce reduces, you'll be left with this amazing sauce to cover your steaks in. If the sauce is a bit too intense, try thinning it out with beef stock.

Look at that wonderful steak.

Overall, I would say my night was a success. I'm still a little devo I didn't do more research into the octopus before I attempted it (thereby wasting all those naturally delicious octopi...sorry guys!) but as everyone's been telling me, 3 out of 4 dishes is pretty good.