Slice octopus tentacles. Grill for 3-4 minutes per side, until charred. Remove from heat and place in a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and add lemon juice.
The answer is yes; you can eat it raw and even alive if you wish to. But the meat is tough and rubbery. So, why would anyone want to eat octopus raw? Some say the taste is better when fresh and that cooking octopus ruins the flavor.
Do I Need To Boil Baby Octopus Before Frying? You can definitely fry baby octopus without boiling first, but there are some benefits to this extra step. Boiling helps to tenderize the meat while removing any impurities. If you choose to boil them, do so for 10 to 15 minutes and then rinse with cold water before frying.
How to Grill Octopus without Boiling? If you are lucky to get fresh octopus, you just need to grill them on direct heat for a total of a few minutes on both sides. What is this? As soon as the tentacles or limbs curl up and the flesh turns white or opaque in color, they are cooked.
Step One: Cook the Octopus Until Tender
In most cases, octopus needs to be cooked until tender no matter what the final cooking method will be. Even if you ultimately plan to sear or grill the octopus, you first need to cook it to tenderize it sufficiently.
Fill a saucepan with salted water and bring to the boil. Add the octopus, reduce the heat immediately and simmer gently for 45–60 minutes. It's important that the water is turned down to a gentle simmer once the octopus is in the pan. Cooking it too quickly will result in a rubbery texture.
When the oil is hot, add the onion, garlic, bay leaves and smoked paprika and cook for 2 minutes. Add the whole octopus and some sea salt and black pepper. Put the lid on and cook for 1 hour, or until the octopus is tender. To check, insert a knife into a tentacle; it should cut through with ease.
Tenderising the octopus:
The best thing you can do is to take a rounded wooden stick (or a meat pounder) and to beat it hard, for about 10 minutes, on its the head (the area around the eyes) and on the tentacles all their way long. This operation will stretch the fibres and make the meat tender.
But for most preparations, long, slow cooking, which yields a tender texture, is best. (If you cook it too long, it becomes dry and tasteless.) Although octopi live all over the world, there is a common belief that the best octopus comes from Portugal.
According to A. J. McClane's _Encyclopedia of Fish Cookery _(Henry Holt, 1977), dipping heats the octopus gradually, so that its proteins break down slowly instead of instantly contracting in reaction to the hot water.
Octopus is rich in vitamins and minerals. It's also low in fat, making it a great source of complete protein for people trying to manage their weight. This can depend on how it's prepared, however. Frying it or cooking octopus in butter or oil can add extra fat and calorie content to your meal.
Raw Octopus
The difference between cooked octopus and raw is simply the fact that one of them has been pre-cooked. The company freezes the octopus, cooks it, and freezes it again. The main advantage of buying cooked octopus is time savings. You just need to thaw it, then eat it as is.
The perfect cooking of frozen octopus
The best way to cook the frozen octopus is to throw it directly into the pan with little water and season it once cooked with chopped parsley, oil and salt. Even the cast iron plate allows you to cook the frozen octopus optimally giving it a tasty crunchy texture.
Preparation tips
In the microwave: take the octopus out of the vacuum bag, slice it and put it on a plate, then heat it for 2 or 3 minutes on high power. All you have to do is season and serve! In a bain-marie: boil the vacuum pouch for 5 minutes.
Grill octopus until charred on all sides, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Remove from heat, slice into pieces, and place on a serving platter. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and squeeze lemon over the top. Sprinkle with parsley and season with salt and pepper.
The first step in preparing our octopus is to blanch them in boiling water. Octopus muscles are full of collagen and they release a lot of gelatin, which if not drawn out from the muscles can leave the octopus rubbery and gelatinous. Use more water than you need to draw out as much of the excess gelatin as possible.
Cook until octopus is tender enough that you can pierce the thick part of a tentacle with a paring knife with little resistance, about 1 hour; keep in mind that this time is a rough estimate, and the octopus may be done sooner or it may take longer, but it will get there. Let octopus cool in the cooking water.
Add the salt to a large stockpot of water and bring to the boil. Dunk octopus three times, then add vinegar and simmer over low heat until tender and cooked through (1 hour).
In Portugal and southern Italy, old-school chefs traditionally add wine corks to octopus recipes, claiming that the natural enzymes found in cork help to break down the cephalopod's tough tendons by drawing out moisture (a process similar to that of dry-aging).