River Cottage

Recently I tried octopus for the first time but it was a disaster, rubbery and barely edible. I cooked it in my steamer which has normally been satisfactory for fish/seafood before. I know that octopus is a delicacy in Spain and therefore should not be like this. Perhaps someone could let me know the best way to cook octopus.
Also I have fresh tuna steak this Saturday. What would be the best method to cook this, it will be served with salad, although I expect it will be quite different to the tinned tuna I eat fairly often.
The cooking methods I have facilities for are [for both of the above] are:- steamer; microwave; 'George Foreman' type grill, oven, wrapped in foil, or oven in French tomato and onion sauce.

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Yesterday I watched Hugh mark a bread and butter pud with bread crumbs but I cannot find the recipe. Can you supply it please?

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I received my copy of Dan's Bread book the other day. I was extremely disappointed.
For some unknown reason I was sent the American version despite buying it from the UK
That means it uses arcane measurements like 400F and 32 1/2 Ounces. Now I know I can quickly convert from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Hell I even know the formula. But ounces are more problematic. There are multiple systems of weight in use (American, British, Troy Avoirdupois etc etc) I have no idea which to use.
Then there are the US terms for ingredients. Just what on earth is "half and half"? I see it often in American recipes and know it has something to do with milk, but what is the British, or better, Australian equivalent. This is just one There are a lot of similar problem terms. This makes the whole experience of using this book tainted.

If I had wanted the American version I would have ordered from Amazon.com. I didn't for what I thought was good reason. Can you please supply a list of all the Americanisms and their equivalents (i.e. the original text)

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is fast action dried yeast different from the usual dried yeast?

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As I am still getting used to the whole idea of cooking GF due to a recent Coeliac diagnosis. Is it easy enough to adapt the bread recipes in the cook books?

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Planning to purchase a new food mixer. I have a budget of about £350 will this be enough to buy a mixer that can handle bread dough. Looking at a cheap Kenwood hopefully.

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Can anyone please help me locate the fantastic recipe seen on a recent viewing of River Cottage here in Australia for Piccalily. It involved salting the vegies overnight followed by a short cooking process which left the vegies crunchy. I loved the simplicity but haven't been able to locate the recipe. thanks in anticipation

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I once bought some sweet dried orange peel in Croatia, and would very much like to make some myself. Would you or Pam Corbin be able to help me here as I've been following her jam/marmelade receipes on Tv recently. Any help would be great. Many thanks from Lorraine

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Hi all. I brought The River Cottage Bread Handbook, and in the back is instuctions on how to build a clay oven. The base of my oven will be an old trough turned upside down and want to know if a large slab of marble 1 and 1/4 inch thick would be ok for the base of clay oven and will be able to take the heat of fire or would it crack? I am wanting to make oven out of 90-100% recycled materials. Thanks. Kiwiwgirl.

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I have to be honest, and say I don't cook. I would love to cook but I find it very wasteful because there are only two of us in the household and I find that recipies use different ingredients to each other, and stuff goes off before I need to use it again. Does anyone know of a recipe book that is clever in that it has recipies that either use similar ingredients so that if i have something left over one day, I can use it another, and / or uses the same limited range of dry ingredients so that I can use them time and again? What would be a great idea is a cookbook for the whole year where one range of recipies follow on from a previous range using up all the leftovers from the range before! As it is, my husband 'cooks' and we have an amazing array of sharwoods, uncle bens, packet mixes...... :-(

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