Cooking octopus

About ten years ago I made up my mind to become a real Spanish fishman. So I bought rubber working clothes, skipper cap and went in professional octopus catching. For sure that incredible life stage was my huge contribution to the economic state of Spanish Kingdom.

Daily at 5 am we sailed to sea and worked with hundreds of traps which were designed to catch at least 2−3 terrifying octopus each. On the average we caught about 200 kg of octopus per day. Of course, most of the catch was made up of bitten tentacles (octopus practices cannibalism and eat each other with great pleasure). But restaurants' chefs bought this «damaged» catch rapidly and always with a good discount from us. And surely being a good businessman I preferred to keep frozen half a ton of octopus in my home big freezer during winter time, when the catch is low and consequently the price goes up. And also disposing lots of such speciality product we just couldn’t but cooking it all the time, treating friends and others interested.

So here is a recipe from the professional octopus catcher

Fresh octopus should be freezed first and then slowly unfreezed. It is boiled during an hour or so with bay leaf, garlic bulb and a bit of salt. After that, we clean the octopus (it's easy when it’s cooked well), and cut in pieces like «coins». It’s not obligatory to take off octopus skin, as it has its own specific taste.

On a frying pan we need to prepare a classic mediterranean mix:

Using good olive oil we fry a bit smashed garlic with peel, smashed peppers (black, red, coriander), bunch of thyme and obligatorily red (smoked) paprika. Garbage is thrown away and the octopus pieces are fried rapidly. Then the pieces are placed on a plate in a nice way, sprinkled with flavoured olive oil and hot (or not) red pepper.

Bon appetit!