Octopus anyone?

By the grace of God, it looks like owning the restaurant in Silver Lake is becoming more of possibility.  The current owner and I have finally signed all the escrow documents and I sent them in today!  Let's hope that there aren't any major obstacles that'll turn up through escrow.  If all goes well, Black Hogg could open its doors in 6-8 weeks!

In the meantime, I've been renting out a restaurant kitchen to begin developing the dishes on my menu.  My very own test kitchen.  Hopefully, I'll be able to show you what kind of dishes to expect at the Black Hogg.  The moment I got into the kitchen last week I got to work pickling just about everything.  I made pickled green beans, pickled garlic shoots, pickled garlic, pickled habanero red onions, pickled chile de arbols, pickled indian chiles, pickled carrots... As you can see, I do love my pickles.

Chef David Sutton, he owns the kitchen I'm renting.

The reason I pickled so many things is because an important facet of my dishes is to have a distinct acid component in most of them.  For instance in my Buttery Lamb Burger, I plan to use a tangy goat cheese and top it with my habanero pickled red onions.  Can't you just taste the tangy spiciness cutting into the salty, fatty, buttery goodness?  I can, and my mouth is watering as I write.  When a dish successfully uses an acidic counterpoint to balance the savory aspects, you will know it, your salivary glands will tell you.

Anyway, back to the point.  The first dish I have been working on is a dish that I have been imagining for a while now.  It is an Indian-inspired dish.  I loooooove Indian food, but my wife - not so much.  So we rarely ever go eat Indian food.  So all I can do is daydream about Indian food.  The dish I've been working on is my take on a potato and cauliflower dish called Aloo Gobhi.  I love this dish.  It's almost never done right at most Indian restaurants.  This dish should have some major kick.  I have made my dish with some major kick, we're talking ninth-degree black belt level stuff...


While Aloo Gobhi is traditionally a vegetarian dish, I wanted to add a protein to it.  In my head I kept thinking it would be perfect with a nicely charred grilled octopus.  After making it, I was right.  Match made in heaven.

enjoy...

Where's the acid component you ask?  It's in the braise...