Octopus

I love the flavor of octopus roasted over smoldering oak.  For this dish we found a large oak limb that had fallen on the property and had our very helpful engineering department cut small planks out of the wood.  We charred the planks over open flame until they were fully blackened and dried out.  The octopus was sliced thin and marinated with harrisa, garlic and olive oil for six hours. 

We placed the marinated octopus slices on the charred oak plank and quickly roasted it in the broiler until the octopus was cooked, but still tender and the oak was glowing red.  As the plates were brought to tables they trailed a wisp of aromatic smoke behind them. 

   

To accompany the oak roasted octopus I served a fresh garbanzo bean hummus, crispy garbanzo beans tossed with smoked paprika, heirloom tomato, pickled red onion and chive scapes from the garden.