Delicious octopus. Octopus, cooking secrets and several recipes (any PP). What does octopus meat taste like?

Octopus does not require long cooking. Small frozen octopuses only need 5 minutes of boiling in boiling water. It is recommended to cook a whole octopus weighing 2 - 3 kg for 25 - 30 minutes over low heat in salted water. Larger “octopuses” can be cooked for about an hour. A chef's fork will help you assess the readiness of the octopus: pierce the thickest head part of the carcass with it, if the fork easily enters the meat, the octopus is ready. Boiled octopus is combined with garlic and onions, tomatoes and rice, olive oil and wine, lemons and, as well as herbs.

Fried octopus

Usually, everything doesn’t end with frying the octopus; after several minutes of frying, the pieces of “sea meat” are stewed in sauce or dressing. An exception is octopus kebab or skewered octopus. To prepare this original dish, you first need to marinate large pieces of octopus 6-8 cm long and about two cm wide. For the marinade, it is better to use onion, soy sauce, olive or vegetable oil. The pieces should be marinated for about forty minutes, and then placed on a wire rack or strung on a skewer or skewer and fried over the fire.

Stewed octopus

First, the octopus pieces are lightly fried, and then stewed for 20 - 25 minutes. Octopus tentacles stewed with vegetables and spices are an integral part of dishes such as linguine with seafood, that is, they will complement any pasta well, as well as boiled rice.

Baked octopus

Before baking, the octopuses must be peeled (see peeling method in the preparation chapter) and lightly beaten with a hammer. Place the prepared carcasses on a baking sheet and put them in the oven preheated to 200°C for 10 minutes, then coat the carcasses with sauce, for example, oyster sauce and put them in the oven again for 10 minutes, but increase the temperature to 250°C.

Adviсe!

Buy octopuses weighing up to a kilogram - they have softer and more tender meat.

Large octopuses should be lightly pounded before cooking.

To soften octopus meat, freeze it shortly before cooking (for a day or two).

If quite recently we saw exotic inhabitants of the deep sea only on television screens, today they can be found on store shelves. And some of them make very tasty dishes! How to cook octopus so that it is tasty and healthy?

How to make the right choice?

First of all, you should choose an octopus.

Frozen or fresh? If you want to get the maximum benefit and enjoy the delicate taste, then it is advisable to choose fresh. But you will probably have to cut it up, although you can ask the seller about it (he will probably have to pay). And if you want to save effort and time, you can also buy frozen octopus; in this form, the carcasses are usually sold already completely cut up and even cook faster, and this is very convenient.
Pay attention to the size. Small octopuses have more tender flesh, medium ones are more nutritious, but a large adult octopus weighing about two to three kilograms can be “rubbery.”
Evaluate the appearance. But such a criterion will only be relevant if you buy fresh octopus. The surface of the carcass should be shiny, the color should be burgundy-brown and uniform. No damage is allowed.
Study the smell. It is specific, but quite pleasant. It definitely shouldn’t taste like rotten meat.

Proper preparation for cooking

Preparation consists of several stages:

First, the carcass must be thawed if it is frozen. But this should be done only at room temperature, that is, naturally, and not in a microwave oven.
Next, rinse the octopus thoroughly under running cold water to remove all the mucus.
It is not worth cleaning the carcasses before cooking; the skin is very, very difficult to remove, so it is better to get rid of it after heat treatment (then it will come off quickly). But if the octopus is adult and large, then its shell will be quite dense, so it can be scraped off with a knife at this stage.
Now you need to cut the carcass (frozen will probably already be cut). To do this, it is more convenient to first cut off the tentacles, but this is not necessary. Next, cut off the lower part of the head, that is, the support on which the tentacles are held. In it you will find a mouth opening similar to a tooth or beak. It needs to be removed. To do this, first squeeze it out, and then cut it out with a knife. Also cut out the eyes.
Now wash the inside of the head well to remove all the offal, as well as ink, if there is any there. Then you can turn it out and wash it again.
If the octopus is large, then it is advisable to beat it before cooking.

How to cook?

If you decide to cook octopus for the first time, then the easiest way for you will be boiling. But how long should you cook it to make it tasty? Processing should be short, otherwise the meat will become stringy and tough, like rubber (this is a very common problem).

Your task is simply to destroy all pathogenic organisms. Small octopuses only need to be cooked for about five to seven minutes, larger ones - about 20. But a large octopus can be cooked for about an hour.

You can check readiness with a toothpick. Pierce the largest part of the carcass, that is, the head. If the toothpick goes in easily and quickly, then the octopus is ready. If not, then cook it some more. And after cooking, you can remove the skin.

How to cook?

How to properly cook octopus if you want to make a more interesting dish? Below are some interesting options.

Option #1

You can bake octopus with potatoes. Here's what you'll need:

1 kg of octopus (or a whole carcass);
1 kg of potatoes;
parsley;
five cloves of garlic;
three tablespoons of lemon juice;
olive oil;
salt to taste.

Preparation:

Potatoes need to be peeled, cut into slices and boiled.
Boil the octopus and cut it (small octopuses do not need to be chopped).
Grease the bottom of a baking dish with olive oil.
Place the potatoes mixed with the octopus in the mold, sprinkle everything with lemon juice and olive oil, and sprinkle with chopped garlic and chopped parsley. Don't forget to salt the dish.

Option No. 2

Try stewing octopus at home using sour cream and milk. Prepare:

500 grams of octopus;
2 glasses of milk;
half a glass of sour cream;
five tablespoons of flour;
three tablespoons of white wine;
a tablespoon of lemon juice;
three cloves of garlic;
two tablespoons of olive oil;
salt and pepper to taste.

How to cook?

Octopuses need to be boiled for about 10 minutes, adding lemon juice and wine to the water.
Now clean the carcasses and cut into portions if they are large.
Heat olive oil in a frying pan and fry the garlic.
Add the milk and when it is hot, dissolve the flour in it.
Cook the sauce until it boils, then add sour cream.
Now lay out the octopuses.
Place pepper and salt in the pan, simmer for five minutes and remove from heat.

Option #3

You can prepare a delicious salad. Here's what you'll need for this:

500 grams of octopus;
4 potatoes;
head of red onion;
10 cherry tomatoes;
lettuce leaves;
60 grams of pitted olives;
5 tablespoons of olive oil;
1 tablespoon lemon juice;
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar;
a teaspoon of liquid honey.

Preparation:

Boil the octopus, peel and cut.
The potatoes need to be boiled in their skins, peeled and cut into cubes.
Cut the cherry into halves.
Cut the onion into half rings.
Just tear up the lettuce leaves.
To prepare the sauce, mix vinegar, oil, lemon juice and honey.
Mix the ingredients, add salt and season with sauce.
Salad ready!

The octopus should only be immersed in boiling water. Moreover, real experts advise doing this gradually: first immerse the tentacles, and when they slightly change shade and begin to curl, you can lower the entire carcass.
During cooking, do not add salt under any circumstances, it will make the pulp hard. For taste, you can use some fragrant seasoning.
If you don’t want to pound the octopus, you can freeze it; this technique will also soften the meat.
It is advisable to reduce the heat to a minimum; the carcasses should literally simmer in barely boiling water, and not cook in a seething broth (then the taste will deteriorate).
To make the pulp more tender, you can add a cork from a wine bottle (not plastic, of course) during cooking.
Octopus goes well with various sauces, especially creamy and soy sauces.
You can serve the dishes with any side dishes, for example, vegetables, spaghetti, rice.
To remove the skin faster, after heat treatment you can pour cold water over the octopus.

Choose the best recipe and be sure to surprise your family and guests with an unusual and tasty dish!

Octopus is one of the most popular shellfish used to prepare various delicious dishes. The most popular, from a culinary point of view, are small octopuses - weighing up to 2 kg. The process of preparing octopus requires compliance with certain rules, otherwise the meat will be tough as rubber and taste unpleasant.

In modern Russian supermarkets, octopus is usually sold frozen, although you can also find a fresh chilled product. However, it is believed that frozen meat is more tender. How to cook frozen octopus? First, you will need to defrost and clean it - remove the beak, eye and entrails, if this has not been done previously. The tentacles of a large specimen can be scraped with knives to cut off the dense scales; on small octopuses they can be left.

Cook octopuses in boiling water. Cooking time depends on the size of the mollusk - it is enough to cook small octopuses for 3-5 minutes, large specimens should be thermally treated for at least 1 hour. There is no need to salt the octopus during cooking; any spices must be added after cooking. How to cook octopus in marinade? The cooled meat should be cut into pieces and marinated in lemon juice with the addition of seafood seasoning.

You can also cool the boiled octopus in the refrigerator. To do this, the tentacles are cut off from the carcass and the head is cut into strips. The resulting segments are placed in a plastic bag and tightly rolled into a tight roll. Shellfish meat contains a large amount of gluten, as does pork tail, for example. This property allows the dish to harden quickly. The chilled product is cut into slices and consumed as an independent snack.

When answering the question - how to cook octopus, you can offer other popular recipes. For example, a defrosted clam can be cut into pieces, dipped in a salted dough batter and fried in a hot frying pan. It is important that the octopus is small - in this case the meat is tender and cooks quickly. You only need to fry the pieces for a few minutes until golden brown. Boiled octopus can be stewed in tomato, creamy, mustard sauce, and also used to prepare various salads, combined with vegetables or other types of seafood.

There are other ways to cook octopus. For example, many housewives cook shellfish in a slow cooker. In this case, the cooking technology is slightly different - the whole processed carcass is placed in the multicooker bowl, a wine stopper is placed there and, without adding water, it is cooked for 2 hours in the “Stew” mode. During heating, enough liquid is released from the shellfish so that the product cooks in its own juice. The finished delicacy is cut into pieces, sprinkled with lemon juice, soy sauce, and sprinkled with spices.

Calorie content: 82 kcal.

The octopus is a mollusk that has a small body and 8 long tentacles with suckers. He is a predator who prefers to live alone. On average, the size of an individual individual can be up to 50 cm, and the weight reaches up to 3 kg. The octopus is included in the list of primitive animals that have existed on earth for a long time. The mollusk lives mainly in tropical and subtropical oceans.

Octopus meat is tender and soft and tastes slightly sweet. From one individual up to 75% of the meat is obtained from the total mass. In general, there are 4 categories of octopus, which differ in weight:

Individuals weighing no more than 2 kg.
Individuals weighing from 2 to 5 kg.
Individuals weighing from 5 to 10 kg.
Individuals weighing more than 10 kg.

The best are considered octopuses that are included in categories 3 and 4.

How to select and store?

The taste and quality of the dish have a direct connection with which octopus you choose. There are several recommendations that will help you cope with this task:

If you buy a whole carcass, then look at the eyes of the mollusk. In fresh octopus they will be transparent.
I usually cut up large carcasses, so when buying tentacles, pay attention to the color of the skin. A quality octopus will be brown and shiny. If the leather has damage or black spots, this is a sign of improper storage.
Octopus meat should be elastic. This can be checked by pressing on the surface. The resulting hole should recover almost immediately.

Beneficial features

The benefit of octopus is the presence of easily digestible protein, which is necessary for the functioning of internal organs. It contains polyunsaturated fatty acids in large quantities, which reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases. The mollusk also contains a large amount of zinc, which resists the aging process of the skin and improves immunity. When consumed regularly, the body is saturated with vitamin B12, which is a natural antioxidant that is important for saturating cells with oxygen.

Use in cooking

Octopus is a fairly popular food product, which in many countries is used to prepare original dishes, although for our country it still remains exotic. The mollusk is especially popular in Asian countries, where it is even eaten alive. In Italy, octopus is used to prepare first courses, and it is also used to make sandwiches, appetizers and salads. Many people prefer baked octopus in dough. The shellfish can be cooked either whole or in parts. In general, you can use any of the existing methods to prepare it: fry, boil, stew, pickle, dry, etc.

In some restaurants, shellfish are served stuffed with various products, for example, vegetables, mushrooms, dried fruits or cereals. To vary the taste of octopus, for example, when boiled, you can use olive oil, herbs and spices, wine and soy sauce.

How to cook octopus with your own hands?

If you managed to purchase octopus, then to prepare it, you should follow these recommendations:

If you bought frozen shellfish, you should defrost it first. It is important to do this gradually, that is, first in the refrigerator and only then at room temperature.
If you bought a fresh octopus, then in order for the meat to be soft, you should put the carcass in the freezer for 2 days. There is another way to make a clam soft. To do this, you must first immerse it in boiling water and then in ice water. Similar manipulations should be repeated 6 times.
The carcass must be thoroughly washed under running water, paying special attention to the tentacles and suckers. The body should be cleaned of its entrails and then turned inside out to make sure that you did everything correctly. Using scissors, you need to remove the “beak” and eyes. After this, the carcass must be thoroughly rinsed again to remove all mucus and ink.
To remove the skin from the octopus, although this is not necessary, you need to boil it for 10 minutes, cool and gently pull the skin.
The cooking time for octopus depends on its size. If the carcasses are small, then the heat treatment time is no more than 5 minutes. If you are cooking a large octopus, whose weight reaches 3 kg, then the time increases to half an hour. You need to check for doneness by piercing the thickest part of the head; if a fork easily pierces the clam, it’s ready. The water cannot be salted. It is important to immerse the carcass in already boiling water. First, the tentacles and as soon as they change color, you can lower the body of the mollusk. Cooking should be done on minimum heat. Another unusual secret to make the octopus soft after heat treatment is to place a wooden wine stopper in the pan.
Octopus is rarely fried in a frying pan. Basically, this is done before stewing. If you want to grill clams, you should marinate them first. It is best to use pieces no more than 8 cm in length and no thicker than 2 cm in width. The marinating process will last approximately 40 minutes.
If you want to stew octopus, first fry it and then simmer for 25 minutes.
Only peeled octopuses can be baked. First, beat it lightly and leave for 10 minutes. into a preheated oven at 200 degrees. After the time has passed, the carcass must be coated with sauce and put into the oven again for 10 minutes, but the temperature must be increased by 50 degrees.

Octopus harm and contraindications

Octopus can cause harm if an individual intolerance to the product is detected. It is important to consider that if the mollusk lived in a polluted environment, then its meat may contain substances that are toxic to the body. Incorrectly cooked octopus meat can lead to serious poisoning.

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Today, dishes prepared from octopus are still considered a delicacy. Few people dare to cook them at home.

Firstly, because of fear, and, secondly, because they don’t know how to do it correctly. In this article we would like to tell you how to properly select, clean and cut octopus, as well as several simple and tasty recipes for octopus dishes.

How to cook young octopus

Octopus dishes came to us from Asian countries. Only then did the fashion for them penetrate into European countries and into our country. Usually, young octopuses of not very large size are taken for cooking, which have quite tender flesh and have a very unique sweet and sour taste.

They can be eaten raw, boiled or fried. Dishes made from them are served as appetizers, soups, salads and even the main dish. Don't know how to improve your relationship with your mother-in-law? Prepare an octopus bolet especially for her, and then her favor is simply guaranteed.

How to cook octopus? Just wash the octopus thoroughly, boil it in water, which must first be salted, for 10 minutes and cool in the same broth.

In general, experts from all over the planet strongly advise everyone to eat dishes made from seafood in their diet, some of which are the heroes of our article.

The usefulness of seafood lies in the fact that it contains a huge amount of protein and also has a small amount of calories.

Moreover, if you cook them correctly, the result will be an excellent dish with an unusual but interesting taste, which is light and sophisticated.

How to grill octopus so it's soft and juicy

Do you like barbecue? Then you can cook it, but instead of meat or chicken, take octopus, or rather octopuses. It will be especially appetizing if you cook it over a fire.

To do this you will need:

one piece of lemon,
one kilogram of small octopuses,
one tablespoon of vegetable oil,
a couple of cloves of garlic,
one bunch of dill and spices to taste.

How to cook octopus on the grill:

First you need to prepare the marinade. Chop the garlic and herbs, mixing it with the zest and juice obtained from half a lemon. Next, add oil and spices.

Mix the resulting mixture thoroughly and pour it over the prepared octopuses. We leave them to marinate for 30 minutes, and then we put the octopuses on skewers, which we place on the barbecue or grill.

Cook until done. The dish should turn out very tasty and aromatic.

Stewed octopus with vegetables recipe

How to cook octopus. Also, an excellent recipe for how to cook octopus is the one that came to us from Italy. We're talking about octopus with potatoes. Many who have tried it are of the opinion that this is a rather unusual and tasty seafood dish. How is this dish different from others? Because it has a rather delicate and memorable taste.

So, what ingredients do you need to cook octopus with potatoes? Write down:

Half a kilo of potatoes;
Onion in the amount of one piece;
Olives without pits (50 grams);
60 ml olive oil;
Two pieces of bay leaf;
One bunch of parsley;
One kilogram of octopus;
A tablespoon of vinegar; Spices to taste;
One piece of celery.

How to cook octopus with vegetables so that it is soft and juicy:

Now let's begin the process of cooking octopus. Their carcasses should be washed very well and beaten a little so that they become soft.

Chop the celery and place it in a container with the bay leaf and chopped onion. Fill it all with water and bring to a boil.

Once the water boils, you can add the octopus to it. Turn the heat to medium and cook them for 45 minutes, not forgetting to add vinegar and a pinch of salt.

Once the octopuses are cooked, cool them and remove the skin. Next, chop the meat into pieces. Let's move on to cooking the potatoes. It is necessary to remove the peel and cut into slices.

Fry the onion, cut into half rings, in a frying pan where the oil has been preheated. As soon as the onion turns golden, add the potatoes, which need to be fried for 5 - 7 minutes. Moreover, the fire must be strong. Stir the potatoes if necessary.

After this time, add olives and octopus meat to the prepared mass and fry it for 10 minutes over low heat, covering with a lid.

As soon as you notice that the potatoes have become soft, add spices and chopped parsley. Mix the dish thoroughly and leave it covered in the pan with the heat off. The dish is ready!

How to choose the right octopuses in the store

Small and medium sized octopuses are usually sold whole and are easier to select. No matter how strange it may sound, an octopus is chosen by its eyes. They are, so to speak, a mirror of his quality. A good and edible mollusk should have transparent eyes.

The color of the octopus should be natural.

A large specimen is cut up and on the shelves you can only see tentacles, which, naturally, have no eyes. Here you should focus on skin color. It should be shiny and have a beautiful brown color. You can take this product without hesitation.

But it is better not to buy an octopus that has black spots at the ends of the tentacles and those whose skin is torn. They are either not fresh or were not stored correctly.

How to clean properly - step-by-step instructions

The octopus is one huge muscle. The larger the octopus, the tougher the meat. In order for the meat of this cephalopod to be soft, juicy and tender, it must be properly cleaned and prepared.

1. Fresh octopus should have firm flesh, have a sea fishy smell, skin color should be chestnut, and the whites of the eyes should be transparent and white. It is recommended to purchase octopuses weighing up to a kilogram; they have more tender and soft meat.

2. Rinse the octopus under running water, sort through every tentacle, remove every sand and remaining dirt.

3. Cut off the head a little below the eyes, remove the tentacles, and set them aside. Cut off the eyes and, using a knife, clean out the cavity of the carcass. Squeeze the beak with force, cut it out and throw it away. Rinse your head thoroughly, cleaned of entrails, inside and out.

4. The skin from a fresh octopus is very difficult to remove. Therefore, cooks often leave it until they heat it. If you still want to remove the skin, boil the octopus in water for 5-10 minutes, cool it, and then remove the skin from the cold carcass.

5. Now the octopus can be cooked or frozen for storage. Experienced chefs always recommend freezing the octopus carcass before cooking; this significantly softens the tough muscle meat. Place the cleaned octopus in the freezer and leave for at least a day, but preferably 2-3 days.

6. You can cook a large number of dishes from octopus. This meat is in delightful harmony with onions, garlic, tomatoes, lemon, olive oil, rice, wine and soy sauce.

Octopus is not only great in salads, it's amazing as a main dish. For example, try cooking octopus kebab or stewing it in red wine.

Video: how to cut an octopus

How to cook in a saucepan to make salad

The step-by-step process of an interesting and unique preparation of exotic octopus in a pan looks like this:
To begin, thoroughly rinse all purchased and previously processed blanks, remove the contents of each head and cut off the eye areas, as well as the “beak”.
If the seafood was sold with a small ink sac, it is also removed with the utmost care.

If the seafood is large, it is better to beat it a little before you start cooking. But do it carefully so as not to damage the meat.

You can only put carcasses into boiling water when the water is boiling well, so as not to get tough meat.
The product must be prepared in a minimal amount of liquid so that the octopus remains juicy and flavorful.
It is recommended to cook only under a tightly closed lid - this way the meat will not lose its natural exotic taste.
Cooking a large octopus takes from half an hour to an hour, and small ones – up to 10 minutes.
It is better to cool seafood in the water in which it was boiled so that the meat does not lose its pleasant taste.
You can cook meat without using water, when only 2 cm of liquid is poured into the pan, brought to a boil and the octopus is laid out there. During the cooking process, water is gradually added.
It is recommended to salt seafood directly at the end of the entire process, when the seafood is almost ready for consumption.

Ready meat can be served with various side dishes or on its own. The product is ideally combined with white or red wine, which has previously been chilled.

How to properly store octopus meat

There are no contraindications for octopus meat as such. However, you should understand that when purchasing it, it is important to follow the maintenance rules. Otherwise, you won’t even notice how it can spoil and consume it.

Therefore, for proper maintenance, it is enough to store the meat in the freezer of the refrigerator at a low temperature, about -19°C. The average long-term shelf life of the product under such conditions is about 2 months.