/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>13506892
I’m Italian and every restaurant make it amazing.

Usually we have two varieties: “salad octopus” and cooked.

Idk why people here think it’s difficult to make because it’s stupid easy, but I’ll explain after.

>salad: it’s basically boiled octopus, cut into slices and put together with potatoes, oil, garlic and parsley (mainly) then left in the fridge overnight to develop flavour. It’s eaten cool or lightly warm, usually during summer because it’s very handy and light.

Variations include the adding of tomatoes, carrots, onions, shrimp and even lobster. This variation is called here “Catalana” (Catalan) and it’s a dish from Spain.

Pic related is called “polipo e patate” o “insalata di polipo” and it’s the classic Italian octopus antipasto.

>cooked: like the one in the OP, you start from a boiled octopus and then you prepare it with different techniques (grilled, fried, stir fried, furtherly cooked in a tomato sauce to make an octopus soup, ecc..)

>expensive

Not really, it costs 18€ per kg and with a 1,5 kg octopus you feed 3-4 people so it’s really not that expensive if you consider that with this money you can’t buy a high quality T-bone steak here (1 kg).

>how to make

Take a big pot, fill it with water and add 1 onion cut into a half, 1 peeled medium carrot, a celery branch and 5-10 white pepper grain (if black less) then bring it to a boil.

When boiling hold the octopus (cleaned of the beak and eyes if you like to do it before) from the head and pour it slowly in the water 3-4 times up and down until the tentacles curl then drop it.

Usually 25-30 minutes of boiling are the requested time to fully cook it and keep it tender, with a toothpick feel the doneness by poking the thickest part of the tentacle. If very soft turn of the gas and let it cool in its own broth.

Take it out the pot, cut and clean the tentacles and the head from the loose skin and then your ready to start your final preparation.

I have a whole 3 course meal for women.

First I start with an appetizer of octopus and potatoes (pic related), just a medium/small portion along with a glass of Prosecco wine.

(Bonus: I eat the leftover octopus the day after and it’s even more good because it has rested an extra day)

Main course is a dish of linguine with mazzancolle shrimps and crushed cherry tomatoes with the bisque made from the shells/heads of the shrimps using the broth made from the water the octopus boiled in before, for more concentrated flavours.

The last course is 1 kg of marinara mussels split in two bowls each one of us.

Wine for the last two dishes is a Chardonnay.

90% of the times women bring with them a cake they made or something else sweet, and if they don’t I just eat their pussy as dessert.

>>12881094
It’s time