We are committed, and that’s no lye!

We are committed, and that’s no lye!

I love much about my job. Especially on days like today, because you see, I have a flex schedule, and 4 ten hour days, meaning Fridays off every week. This is relevant because when you have a big project, like doing 72-hour short ribs in the sous vide, or are lye-soaking octopi for a 400 year old recipe (as one does), that extra day gives you time to get through it.

And that’s where I am today. I collected some ash from other cooking fun I’ve had and then hummed the MacGyver theme a few times for inspiration while I whipped up a rig to get lye from those ashes.

Okay, mandatory safety note here. Lye isn’t to be trifled with. It’s a highly reactive chemical substance, and yes, you can hurt yourself (or other things) with it if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s entirely possible, if you do things wrong here, to suffer severe chemical burns…like in your eyes. Am I scaring you a little? Good! As it happens, I’ve had a pretty solid chemistry education, and yes, I took it carefully. Please do the same if you’re going to try this.

Good reason never to get rid of old plastic buckets or t-shirts!

Then, as you might recall from the last post, I made up a red cabbage tea which has the useful property of changing color to react to pH. What I’m aiming for is a pH of about 10 (lutefisk ranges from 10-ish to 12…and remember, for every whole number higher, the strength of the base is 10x more). So that’s a decently large target to hit. I am aiming low because our recipe warns us to not make it too strong or it will eat our octopus and make our Lord mad. I presume it’s because octopus would have to be caught, cleaned, dried well, then shipped 400 miles overland. Pricy! Also, dried octopus doesn’t seem like it would be as sturdy as dried blocks of cod or other whitefish. So, not so high on the pH!

By the way, a shoutout to my parents, who got me my first chemistry set, BeeZee Smith, my first county librarian who showed me the science books, and to Mr Koehl, Mr Lemon, Doctor Postma, and Doctor Ball, all of whom taught me more chemistry. This valence is for you!

Back to the project. I ended up with about a quart of slightly ashy, ugly water. I put a scant quarter cup of it into a Pyrex bowl. I added about a quarter teaspoon of my red cabbage tea. Isn’t it pretty?

And voila!

See that greenish color? That’s a pH 10 for you! Okay, not as pretty as if the lye had been absolutely clear, instead of murky, but it’s definitely green, so we are pretty much in our target. Knowing now that it wasn’t yellow, meaning pH 11 or higher (and thus, very dangerous), I dared put a fingertip into it, and rubbed fingers together. Yes, it had that tell-tale soapy feel (yes, of course I washed my hands after). And not blue, which would be about baking-soda-strength.

This is a weak lye solution! Exactly what we wanted. Now, I need to mention that as far as anyone knows, the cabbage tea test is NOT a medieval test. Odds are, their tests if any, were just a matter of experience…something along the lines of “Go get some lye from the washer-women when they make soap, and pour water into it until it feels right.”

And that’s the trickiest part all solved and ready to go. If it had been too weak, concentrating it safely would have been a problem. With that covered, there was only one thing more I could do…

Put the octopus in to soak in cold water. The recipe says change it several times and I’ll definitely do that (helps to remove salt)…but I won’t leave it out on the counter. It’s safer in the fridge, I think. And now we wait. According to the timeline I’ve built for this recipe, the next step (besides changing the water out) will be Saturday, before I go to bed. I’ll let the somewhat rehydrated octopus bathe in the lovely lye-water overnight, then. Sunday morning it gets rinsed, boiled in clean water, peeled as necessary, and spit roasted with olive oil and black pepper.

Octopi, in for a two day Pipkin-soak

See you in two days!



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