# How to prepare baby octopus?



## Astrida88 (Jun 6, 2019)

I am looking for really simple and fast way to prepare frozen baby octopuses.

I bought a pack of them and my first try preparing them didn't end that well. Most recipes I found say to fry them for 10 minutes till the water evaporates, then pour some wine on them and let they stew for 40 mins.
I don't have wine at home (and I assume Ajerconiac won't do) so I let them stew in water with spices for like 15 mins but because I was impatient soon I removed the water, pour some oil and make them friend octopuses instead. Which was kind of dangerous because they contain water so were splashing hot oil at me.

They turned out edible I quess, but they taste kind of like overfired egg. Salty-sweetly-oily. Not a tasty treat. I ate 2 and the rest went into a glass - I decided they might taste better if I let them sink in vinegar water for a hour or so. I am waiting for the results now.

There is a half of the pack left. Any sugestions how to prepare them in less than 30 minutes (15 mins preferably) cooking time, without wine and too many intergients I would have to buy? I can let them sink in spicy fluid for a few hours if needed but I don't want to watch the stove for hours. I have oil, vinegar, salt with algue, pepper, some chicken spices, curry spieces, eggs, olives, died garlic, potatoes (cooked and raw), rice, cucumbers, a tomato and some homemade salads. And Vitamin C powder - which is my favorite spice, that easily replaces lemon juice. Oh, and I have some onion-like herbs in my balcony garden. There is also some sorrel growing there, if it helps (I like its sour taste).

I have a stove, an electric grill and a microwave. I don't own any oven.

Anyway. The biggest question for me is: how long doesn't it takes for a baby octopus to be safe to eat. I was afraid of cooking chicken because I though it needs hours of processing but by trial and error I learned it is actually ready after a few minutes of grilling or frying.
Do baby octopus really needs to be cooked for 40 mins? Or is it safe to eat after a few minutes, like chicken?

The package says something like: "Frozen baby octopus, ready to eat after unfreezing. Eat after temperature processing: for example cook, fry, bake...". They won't say how long it should be processed and in what temperature.

Octopus ate not common dish in my country, My mom never prepared one (she is actually afraid of them) but I bought canned octopus quite a few times. They were always too oily for me but they were nice with some vinegar. I like their rubbery texture. Since canned dish never tastes well I figured it might be better if I cooked them myself.


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## Electra (Oct 24, 2014)

I thought you were planning to help a baby octopus and then I read poor some wine on them and let them stew 😳🥺


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## Miharu (Apr 1, 2015)

Takoyaki. But then you don’t have the pan for that. Grilling would be your best bet.


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## DOGSOUP (Jan 29, 2016)

Never tried making them but from what I understand, paying attention cooking time is very important for good texture & taste, that's probably why they recommend stewing.

(Personally I'd try grilling > frying).


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## Electra (Oct 24, 2014)

Here is a recipe I found.

*Akkar with burnt chili*
Akkar is an octopus, the one with the mantle
and ten arms. Occasionally it comes
into Norwegian waters, and then it's fun
To use it. I wouldn't recommend frozen squid.

2 large akkar
1 red chili
salt
1 clove garlic
lemon
2 tablespoons olive oil

Burn the chili over an open flame until it
is completely scorched. Wrap it in plastic for 10 minutes, peel off the skin, remove the entrails and the stem, chop the chili into small cubes,
mix with the oil, stir together with a
crushed garlic clove.
Clean the squid. Cut the tentacles and
head loose from the cloak. I do not tend to
use its head on this one. The arms can for
example breaded and crispy. Split the
coat up. Remove the small black ink bag that lies there (this ink is
super-concentrated in color, use it
to color for example pasta or bread.)
Also remove the cartilage plate (pen). lay
the cleaned coats on the bench, try to
peel off the outside. Use one
sharp knife, cut a grid pattern
all one side, without cutting completely
through the meat. Heat a grill pan
properly, put on the acorn with it
routed the page down. Leave it for approx. 30 seconds. Turn it over and fry it for 5 sec-
below too. It is important that the pan is
warm. If the acre is too long, it stays
sticky. Take the pan off the heat, place the octopus on a tray, butter the chili, press on
a little lemon, and season with crushed sea salt.
Cut into oblique slices lengthwise.
SUITABLE FOR: Serve with, for example, one
simple risotto or a salad and a salsa.


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## Astrida88 (Jun 6, 2019)

Miharu said:


> Takoyaki. But then you don’t have the pan for that. Grilling would be your best bet.


I have a regular pan so I quess I could make up with that, somehow. Not like it needs to be balls. It could turn into a takoyaki omlette or takoyaki cake or something, I don't care.

But the Polish "recipe" for takoyaki says "the cook puts previously boiled octopus inside", without saying how to boil it. The other webpage also suggests to "preferably buy an already boiled octopus", without going into details how to boil one.

Oh, btw. I own 2 kinds of stove. Ceramic one (good for cooking for long periods of time as it stays warm and keeps temperature) and an induction one. The induction is a failure to be honest. It has a "stew" option but it is set on 1300W and I usually cook my things at 800W because at 1000W and over their won't stop boiling through the pot edges (and with 800W they will boil and stop boiling repeatably).
But it has advanced temperature control - it is apparently "smart". It has a few stages from 500W to 2000W (it is translated into *C in one of the options but I doubt that option uses all stages and is particularly accurate, I mostly use 80*C and 100*C because at 130*C everything fries too fast, the default is 270*C). The minimum is 500W and it's apparently a "heat up" option for stuff that shouldn't boil, like milk or chocolate.
I could probably use that if there was any recipe requiring low temperatures or high temperatures.
It comes with a timer too. But it's extremely loud (it has some ventilators) so I hate using it for long periods of time - I can't exactly set it and leave the house, or put a loud music on because it does funny things (for example it is able to throw the pot off itself or boil everything off the edges) so I need to watch it and if I am in another room I need to be ready to rush to the kitchen if I hear anything other than the ventilators noise.

Not like the ceramic one is much better though. It also tends to boil everything over the pot edges, but at least it doesn't throw boiling pots around the kitchen, lol. And its stays silent, except some clicking sound whenever the temperature gets too low and it needs to put some more heat to fix that. On the other hand though if I set temperature too high I need to take the pot off it and wait a few minutes before putting the pot back on, because it stays too hot and the dish keeps boiling/burning despite the stove being turned off.


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## Miharu (Apr 1, 2015)

Astrida88 said:


> I have a regular pan so I quess I could make up with that, somehow. Not like it needs to be balls. It could turn into a takoyaki omlette or takoyaki cake or something, I don't care.
> 
> But the Polish "recipe" for takoyaki says "the cook puts previously boiled octopus inside", without saying how to boil it. The other webpage also suggests to "preferably buy an already boiled octopus", without going into details how to boil one.
> 
> ...


Fair. It doesn’t have to be a ball, you could just make it taste close enough to a takoyaki, but other than that you’ll still need other ingredients to make it. They’re quite essential for a good-tasting takoyaki. Like bonito flakes, okonomiyaki sauce and dashi.

Check this out and see if you can make something like it:





If not, then yeah, simply grill it. Marinade a small batch with ingredients you like and just go for it. If it doesn’t taste as good, you have the rest of the unmarinated ones to try something else with. Cooking time depends a lot on your heat, the size of the octopus etc. Just go by feel. It needs to be tender when poked, not too rubbery.


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## Astrida88 (Jun 6, 2019)

Miharu said:


> Fair. It doesn’t have to be a ball, you could just make it taste close enough to a takoyaki, but other than that you’ll still need other ingredients to make it. They’re quite essential for a good-tasting takoyaki. Like bonito flakes, okonomiyaki sauce and dashi.
> 
> Check this out and see if you can make something like it:
> 
> ...


Oh, that's right. I forgot I have some teriyaki sauce and sesame oil in my fridge. They might be past expiration date (I got them free with no date printed - either a factory printer failure or someone removing the date somehow - but it doesn't look like it was removed, more like it was never there so I assume factory a defect) but I ate the teriyaki sauce like 2 weeks ago and I am still alive. And the sesame oil is not even opened yet.

So basically octopus is safe to eat after frying just as long as the eggs need in about 100-130*C temperature? (the eggs on the video seem like the ones I get when I set my induction cooker at a mix of 100*C and 130*C frying). I wonder how much temperature they even get inside all the egg covering. It might be even as low as 60*C inside, since the egg inside seems like "soft egg". Is it enough to kill the bacteria that could be there?


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## Miharu (Apr 1, 2015)

Astrida88 said:


> Oh, that's right. I forgot I have some teriyaki sauce and sesame oil in my fridge. They might be past expiration date (I got them free with no date printed - either a factory printer failure or someone removing the date somehow - but it doesn't look like it was removed, more like it was never there so I assume factory a defect) but I ate the teriyaki sauce like 2 weeks ago and I am still alive. And the sesame oil is not even opened yet.


Unfortunately, you need neither for takoyaki. But I suppose you can use them for the marinade if grilling. Good luck.


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## Flabarac Brupip (May 9, 2020)

I don't eat octopus because I like octopuses too much. I'd eat dog before I'd eat octopus.


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

Astrida88 said:


> I am looking for really simple and fast way to prepare frozen baby octopuses.
> 
> I bought a pack of them and my first try preparing them didn't end that well. Most recipes I found say to fry them for 10 minutes till the water evaporates, then pour some wine on them and let they stew for 40 mins.
> I don't have wine at home (and I assume Ajerconiac won't do) so I let them stew in water with spices for like 15 mins but because I was impatient soon I removed the water, pour some oil and make them friend octopuses instead. Which was kind of dangerous because they contain water so were splashing hot oil at me.
> ...



Google: How to cook Octopus










My work is done (Whew! I'm tired).


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## Electra (Oct 24, 2014)

tanstaafl28 said:


> Google: How to cook Octopus
> 
> View attachment 883464
> 
> ...


I should have just googled it too, instead of scanning and translating from my chef book 🤦🏽‍♀️


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## Astrida88 (Jun 6, 2019)

tanstaafl28 said:


> Google: How to cook Octopus
> 
> View attachment 883464
> 
> ...


I googled it, Sherlock. It was the first thing I did. In Polish though. And all I got were the "stew in wine for 40mins" recipes, thet were apparently "fast and easy" recipes.


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## Electra (Oct 24, 2014)

Astrida88 said:


> I googled it, Sherlock. It was the first thing I did. In Polish though. And all I got were the "stew in wine for 40mins" recipes, thet were apparently "fast and easy" recipes.


Are you gonna try my reciepe then?


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## ENIGMA2019 (Jun 1, 2015)

Recipe Results for frozen baby octopuses


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## Electra (Oct 24, 2014)

ENIGMA2019 said:


> Recipe Results for frozen baby octopuses


Did you google it?


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## ENIGMA2019 (Jun 1, 2015)

Electra said:


> Did you google it?


I used allrecipes.com That is my go to when in search of variations in recipes and suggestions. I have never cooked octopus if, that is what you are asking.


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## Electra (Oct 24, 2014)

ENIGMA2019 said:


> I used allrecipes.com That is my go to when in search of variations in recipes and suggestions. I have never cooked octopus if, that is what you are asking.


Me neither! Thank God 😅
Ps. Thank you for the tip, I neededit right now 🙂👌


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## Astrida88 (Jun 6, 2019)

I did it, I quess.


I boiled the octopus in some water with Vitamin C for about 1 min. Then I put them out and in the boiling liquid a few times, replicating what I saw in some youtube video. Then I replaced the pot with a frying pan, put some butter on it, let it melt while setting the temperature so the butter won't burn (it was 160*C). Then I put the octopus on the pan but they attacked me with hot oil anyway so I changed the temperature to 130*C and added leftover potatoes. After a while I added the tomato and some fresh onion from my garden. And spices. I let it cook for a few minutes. Done. 

















They turned out quite chewy and I don't think I like their taste after all - they turned out kind of like the chewy thing that connects chicken bones, both in taste and texture. But it was better than yesterday.

And I learned what to do with leftover potatoes and leftover tomato too. Seriously. I can't cook. I only started cooking about 3 months ago. Before that my best "dish" was some prepacked rice with some premade salad and ready-to eat store bought chicken cut in pieces. LOL


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