Recipe | Upper East Side Octopus

Your friends are coming over for dinner, and you may or may not have over-hyped your cooking skills while confidently downing your third glass of wine the night before. Now you’re standing in the kitchen at 10am, contemplating how to make a frozen pizza look restaurant worthy. The folks over at Upper East Side Bondi have got you covered. This octopus, crispy potato, pomegranate, fennel & black olive puree dish is a restaurant fave, and deceptively easier to prepare than you’d think. They’ve kindly supplied us with the recipe, so you can impress even the most Matt Preston-esque dinner guest, and all you need is patience and time.

Freemantle octopus

1kg Freemantle octopus 10g pink salt 20ml olive oil Carefully score and peel off the skin of the octopus, vacuum with the olive oil and salt and cook for 2 hours and 15 minutes at 85 degrees and allow to rest for 2 hours before using.

Black olive & white anchovy puree

3 eshallot 4g rosemary leaves 500g dried olives 3 tbl squid ink 80g white anchovy 40g white anchovy oil 75ml olive oil 1000ml water 20ml Lemon juice 60ml Aged sherry vinegar 4.5g Xantan Gum Slice the eshallots and rinse under cold water for 5 minutes, place all ingredients a part from the xantan, sherry vinegar and lemon juice into the vita prep blender. Blend on full power and slowly add the xantan. Once emulsified season with the acids and pass through a fine sieve.

Compressed baby fennel

1 box baby fennel 300ml verjus 250ml white balsamic 15g pink salt Slice the fennel 1mm thick of the Japanese mandolin. Toss in the verjus, white balsamic and salt vacuum and rest for 5 hours.

Crispy potatoes

1kg baby chat potatoes 2 garlic cloves 1 sprig rosemary 1 bay leaf 10g salt Wash the potatoes and poach with the other ingredients at 90oc for 40 minutes. Drain and crush into random pieces. Toss in potato starch and fry at 180 degrees to serve.

Finish the dish with the following

Fresh pomegranate Bronze fennel tips Extra virgin olive oil