One of the most delicious sea food: octopus. This tentacled mollusc offers plenty of possibilities in the kitchen, but we sometimes have doubts about cooking it. You're wondering how you boil octopus, right? If you treat it when you buy it fresh, if it is better buy frozen, if you can put it in the freezer once cooked... Fear not, this OneHowTo article will answer those questions and explain in more detail how to cook tender octopus.
- Large pan
First, we explain a brilliant trick that will help you a lot when you cook the octopus and make your job easier, it is because of freezing fresh octopus or buying it frozen. Thus, the meat fibres of the meat will break and it won't go hard after boiling. If you buy fresh octopus, you need to know how to clean the octopus to store it clean.
Freezing octopus two days before preparing it will be enough, and one day before boiling it you must take it out of the freezer so it's completely thawed. To do this, put it in a large bowl to collect all the water that will come out of the octopus and leave it in the refrigerator.
If you don't have time to freeze the octopus before cooking or not you want to, you should mash the octopus, i.e. hit it so the fibrous tissue breaks.
Before cooking the octopus, it will be important to wash it well with cold water to remove any dirt or impurities and, if not already done, gut it. To take out all the viscera, you should turn it over and completely empty its head.
Put a large pot of water on to heat without adding salt, and once it's boiling, take the octopus head and "scare it" :put it in and take it out 3 times to get the octopus to stay stiff so it doesn't lose its skin during cooking.
Once the octopus "scared", leave to cook in the water, with the cover on the pan. Octopus cooking time will depend on its size and other factors such as the type of water, the pan... so you will have to pinch the octopus to see if it's still hard.
To get an idea, a 1 kilo octopus can be cooked in about 25-30 minutes and the time will increase the weight increases, but not necessarily proportionally.
It's good to know that you can also freeze octopus once cooked and keep it in optimal conditions to prepare quickly the next time.
Once we have the boiled octopus we can prepare however we need to in our recipes. One of the most famous Spanish recipes is Galician octopus, a rich recipe that you will surely love. Combine with another typical dish: Galician soup!
For more seafood recipes, learn how to cook fresh salmon and how to make Spanish prawn croquettes or prawn tagliatelle.
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