Octopus Cooking Tips
Title from Shrek, Tips from Guilherme Rosado
Hello Shrek, my name’s Guilherme and I’m a Portuguese spearo. I was listening to your podcast with Josh Bollen and you guys were talking about cooking octopus. In Portugal we have lots and lots of octopus recipes and some tricks to cook them. Unfortunately I didn’t finish my submission for the cook book 99 Spearo Recipes but I still gave my support on Kickstarter. Anyway here are some tricks to cook octopus:
1. ALWAYS freeze them.
What makes the octopus so tough are it’s his muscles and when you freeze them you’re helping to loosen and break some of them down.
2. ALWAYS boil the octopus even before grilling them.
Here is how you boil them. Put water to boil in a pot with nothing more than a glove of garlic and a whole onion. Both without being cut up. When the water is boiling, get the octopus and start submerging it for a few seconds and take it out. Wait a few seconds and do it again like 3 times or so. Then you let it boil on a low heat for about 30-45 mins depending on the size of the octopus.
For some yummy Portuguese octopus dishes, search;
- “polvo à lagareiro“
- “arroz de polvo“
- “pataniscas de polvo“
- “alcatra de polvo“.
The last is also a traditional dish that we eat on Christmas. Let me know if there’s still a chance to submit a recipe! Thanks for all the great content keep it up!
Guilherme Rosado with Octopus!
