Good friend Dave remembered me saying that I’d take an octopus if his commercial prawn fishing friend had any to spare (a by-catch that is frozen and used as halibut bait) and brought over 8 of them – frozen. I’ve never cooked a Pacific Giant Octopus before, and all the recipes I have, and that I could find on the net, were for cooking smaller octopus. I gave one method a try and I took pics along the way.
The octopus, not fully thawed, in the sink. The slime on the skin rinses off easily and after rinsing I cut the tentacles off. Forgive me, but for this first go I didn’t use the head.
In the stock pot.
Water, onions, pepper corns, bay leaf. Simmered for an hour or so, scum removed as best I could.
As I said, about an hour or so or until paring knife could poke into a tentacle. Pot dumped into colander and at this point I was disappointed to see not only the skin but the suckers falling off.
And this was the result. Lots of shrinkage and with no skin or suckers, it really didn’t look at all like what I wanted.
I made a provencal style tomato sauce (onion, garlic, tomatoes, parsley, capers, olives, etc) and popped the cut up tentacles in at the end, just to heat them up.
It wasn’t bad, but not great. I’m going to try again, different approach.
shooftie 