Bleedin Thumbs Octopus for Dummies recipe

[Bleedin Thumb]

Ingredients. Serves 4

2 leeks
olive oil
1 kg of frozen baby Octopus - cleaned
2 tins of pealed tomatoes
1 satchel of tomato paste
1 bunch of fresh coriander
2 pods of star anise
chili paste (sambal ) or fresh chillies
1 bottle of Semillon/chardonnay wine.

defrost octopus and quarter - if they're big cut into bit sizes.

Cut the leeks into fine rings- just the white part place in a colander and wash to get the dirt off.
Fry the leeks in oil till soft.
add octopus and stir until they're all curled up.
Add tinned tomotoes and paste and chillies, star annise,corriander, salt & pepper basically add what you want for flavour, basil, tarragon, dill all will work.
Add half the bottle of wine and a dash of brandy or scotch or rum if you have some.
Bring to the boil then simmer very very slowly for 20 minutes

Serve in deep bowls with lots of crunchy bread to soak up the broth.:2tsup:

[Christopha]

OK, Occy, what's the easiest way to clean the mongrels. We get heaps in our craypots and mostly they get used for bait but I like a good feed of Occy so what the best way to clean the slippery sods??

[DavidG]

We used to nail the head to a fence post and then pull the skin off the tentacles with a pair of pliers. :U

Cut up the tentacles into 10mm thick slices.
Beat the slices with a meat hammer.
Cook as required.

[Bleedin Thumb]

To clean them make the first cut lengthways through the head and tentacle - this exposes the guts -all in the head and the beak just before the tentacles.

I know this is not the correct way to do it ...but it works for me and is simple.
Octopus is fairly easy and doesn't require skinning...cuttlefish and squid are a bit more tedious. Great food though and cheap as chips.

You can buy Octopus at coles for less than $10 a kg - there isn't many sources of protein that cheap.

BTW you don't have to tenderise baby Occy that you buy frozen..don't know about the stuff you catch yourself, I suspect it will depend on size.

[Christopha]

Mate. I really want to eat these bloody occys because the mongrels have just done that to MY CRAYS!!!!
Vengeance is mine!!!!

[Honorary Bloke]

Octopus is a bit hard to get over here and quite dear. Should work well with squid though? Not sure about the star anise. :?

[Bleedin Thumb]

Bob,

Star anise is a star shaped seed pod that gives an aniseed flavour - you take the seed pod out before you eat it, you will get it from any Asian/Chinese grocery supplies. You could substitute aniseed, fennel, tarragon all have similar flavour.

If you substituted squid you might find it a bit chewy because it only takes a few minutes to cook. You could just keep checking it as it simmers to tell when the meat is tender then serve...I would guess 3-5 minutes max..maybe not enough for the flavours to combine

I buy my occy at the local supermarket -Coles but you can get it unfrozen from your local fish monger - they just get the frozen stuff from Vietnam or Thailand and charge you extra to defrost it and have it sitting in their shop window for a day or so..


Christopha, how big are the oocys that you get in your pot?

If they're too big let me know and I will send you some small ones as a swap for some crays:D:D

[Christopha]

The Occys here grow quite large because the buggers are full of cray! Some bloke in WA invented a fancy trap for Occy but they don't work here at all because our "slugs" are so much bigger than Sandgroping "slugs"..... Deliver the little baby occys and we will have a nice feed of Cray!

[Bleedin Thumb]

I notice that the fish markets tenderize the large Occy's by putting them in a electric concrete mixer and let then tumble away for God knows how long.

All this take of octopus reminds me of when I lived in Greece for a short time, picking fruit ..the money wasn't great but one days pay paid for accommodation + all the Amstel you could drink and when you got hungry you ordered Ouzo which came with a small complementary plate of octopus. and when the money got really tight you could buy a bottle of Retsina...........yuk

[Gingermick]

I had a char grilled lime chilli octopus at a place in Brisbane once that was sublime. Might just put them on the shopping list and hope she gets em:oo: