When cooked well, octopus is exquisitely delicious. Eaten all thru the Mediterranean region, it is both plentiful and economic. I’ve been eating it around the coast of Italy for years, but the best I ever had was in Puglia. Fresh from the sea, grilled over wood coals and dressed with olive oil and lemon, it was easily one of the best things I’d ever eaten.
As simply as octopus is prepared, if you cook it wrong it is inedible, and for years I was afraid to tackle it. I’ve seen fishermen beating octopi on rocks, trying to soften them. I’ve heard of how octopus must be boiled with a cork in the water. Or boiled five times, or maybe dipped in boiling water five times, I don’t know. Or frozen. Cooked badly it can be tough and rubbery, like chewing on a tire, and the first time I attempted it that’s exactly what happened. Disappointing enough that I didn’t try it again for a long time.
Then my friend, Oriana, gave me a recipe with solid assurances the results would be nothing but tender and delicious, provided I use a pressure cooker. While pressure cookers are back in style in the US, they never went out of fashion in Italy and are widely used by many women. But going out and buying a pressure cooker seemed like too much trouble just to cook an octopus.
Yet I was intrigued by both the simplicity of Oriana’s recipe and her effusive description of how truly delicious the dish was. It starts with frozen octopus.
Apparently the freezing breaks down the tissue and makes the octopus instantly tender. Which I had heard before but never from someone who could confirm the results. The ingredients are two potatoes, a frozen octopus, a cup of white wine and to finish the dish, really good olive oil. It sounded simple enough.
So I tried it and it was one of the easiest and most delicious things I’ve ever made! I mean, this is one of those dishes so truly delicious that you talk about it for days! So here is the simplest way to cook octopus. You can leave out the potatoes and put it with shrimp and mussels in a seafood salad with lemon juice, parsley and olive oil, or you can throw it on the grill with some lemon and olive oil and drink some cold white wine and pretend you’re on the beach in Puglia. But try this way first, with some really great olive oil, and enjoy. Buon appetito!
Octopus with Potatoes and Olive Oil
1 lb octopus, frozen
2 large potatoes, skin on & washed
1 glass white wine
Put everything in a heavy pot with a firmly closed lid (I tie mine down with string to assure that no steam leaks out). Put the pot on a medium heat and cook it an hour and a half.
Take the potatoes out and chop them, putting them on a serving platter. Take the octopus out and remove the purple skin. The skin is edible but I don’t like the gelatinous consistency, so I discard it. Chop the octopus and toss it with the potatoes. Drizzle the whole thing with some really good olive oil and eat it! You can put a sprinkle of fresh parsley on if you like or you can toss it with some arugula.