Portuguese Octopus - Easy and Delicious

Join us in our quest to cook a delicious dinner using an intimidating ingredient - octopus. Our conclusion? Cooking tasty, tender octopus is way easier than we excpected. We suspect you'll feel the same when you cook the popular Portuguese octopus dish, Polvo à Lagareiro, at home.

Portuguese OctopusPhoto by2foodtrippers

What's the best way to cook octopus? Some people boil it with corks. Others hang the cephalopod on ropes by the seaside before beating it with a stick. We've even heard about a special machine that tenderizes the 'pus' with rocks.

We found these techniques while researching how to cook octopus since, as Americans, it's not something we grew up eating at home. After talking with chefs, watching videos and reading a number of recipes, we also found that cooking octopus isn't rocket science (or, as Mindi says, rocket surgery).

As we learned, the key to cooking octopus is all about the cooking time. Slow cooking is the best way to go. We also learned that we all we needed were a few simple tools like baking dishes, aluminium foil and an oven to cook octopus that's super tender. (In fact our first try was almost too tender, if there's such a thing. We'll get to that later.)

Our Cooking Approach

For out first foray into cooking the eight-tentacled sea creature, we chose to cook our octopus lagareiro style. Polvo à Lagareiro, which apparently has roots in the northern province of Trás-os-Montes, is a Portuguese food favorite that's become a holiday staple in its home country. If you celebrate Christmas, and even if you don't, we recommend the dish for your next seven fishes feast.

The dish, which is popular at Lisbon restaurants, features octopus that's cooked until tender and finished at high heat so that it's outside is brown and crisp. Cooks typically plate the octopus over small roasted smashed potatoes and then douse it with oil.

Some restaurants in Lisbon, like O Velho Eurico, literally brown the cooked octopus on a flat top grill to crisp it up. Since this technique sounds logical, we thought we would follow this method. But, upon doing further research, we discovered an even better method while watching a show featuring one of Portugal's most famous TV chefs.

Filipa Gomes, who could be described as the Rachel Ray of Portugal, appears on the Portuguese channel 24Kitchen just about every time we turn it on. In her signature 1940s-esque attire, Gomes demonstrates a wonderfully different home kitchen friendly way of approaching the dish. She roasts the octopus over a base of oil with aromatics, slow cooking the octopus until it's tender. While the octopus is cooking, she roasts and subsequently smashes the potatoes. She then serves the octopus over the potatoes and douses the dish with hot garlic-infused oil.

In this 'homestyle' dish, the octopus is not browned in the same manner as in most restaurants and yet the resulting dish is wonderfully comforting. The octopus liquid and olive oil combine to create a deep sauce that tastes like it came directly from the Atlantic ocean. The sweet onions melt and disintegrate while bay leaves perfume the dish. The combination of allium and bay leaves is pure Portugal. And, since octopus is surprisingly rich in collagen, the briny sauce coats the tongue.

Discovering Gomes' recipe was the impetus for us to conquer our trepidation. Was our first try perfect? No. We probably needed a bigger octopus since the smaller octo we cooked ended up a bit too tender. Many Portuguese would say that the meat should have more resistance when poked with a fork. However, we still loved the homestyle nature of the dish and have already cooked it again. Cooking octopus gives us as much of a thrill as Portuguese explorers de Gama, Megellan and Balboa got with their discoveries. We can't wait to make it yet again once the dank winter weather is in full force

Ingredients

In this recipe, the two most important ingredients are octopus and fingerling potatoes. The potatoes should be simple to find and the octupus, since it's frozen, can be specially ordered if you can't buy octopus at your local seafood market.

• 1 whole octopus (4 to 5 pounds, frozen and cleaned)
• 12 fingerling potatoes (skin on)
• 1 large onion (peeled and quartered)
• 1 teaspooon black peppercorns (whole)
• 1.5 cups olive oil (extra virgin)
• 2 tablespoons salt (fine grain)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 cup cilantro leaves (coarsely chopped for garnish)

Octopus - Even in Portugal, where octopuses seem to be available at most markets, the product is generally sold frozen. In fact, they're frozen the moment they leave the boat. While we bought a medium sized octopus, which is good for two people, we recommend buying an octopus that's 3 to 4 pounds (1.5 to 2 kilos) if you're looking to feed four people. The octo will take about a day to defrost in the refrigerator or 2 to 3 hours in the sink. In Portugal, octopuses are sold after they're cleaned with the exception of the beak. Frozen American octopuses should be sold the same way.

Fingerling Potatoes - You should be able to source fingerling potatoes at your local grocery store. If you can't find fingerling potatoes, you can use small yukon golds or large potatoes cut into tennis ball sized pieces instead.

Bay Leaves - Bringing a unique fragrance to this and other dishes, the bay leaf is an unsung hero in Portuguese cuisine. You only need a couple bay leaves to achieve a magical grandmotherly smell in this dish.

Garlic Cloves - Garlic adds a unique flavor to the finishing oil.

Peeled Onion - We find that a white onion works best in this dish.

Peppercorns - Whole peppercorns add a unique scent and occasional piquant peppercorn morsels add dimension to each bite the dish.

Salt - You only need salt to coat the potatoes. (You don't need to season the octopus with salt since the cephalopod carries plenty of natural salty flavor from the sea.)

Olive Oil - We recommend using a high-quality olive oil for both flavor and richness

Cilantro - We rough chop cilantro and use it as a garnish. You can use parsley instead if you have problems with cilantro.

How To Make Octopus à Lagareiro

Making this dish is simple and can be done in less than two hours. The hardest work is in the prep and handling of the octopus. After that comes the timing of when to place the potatoes in the oven. Our two and a half pound octopus cooked quickly. Some might say that our octopus was TOO tender but that's debatable based on personal preference. (You could always shorten the cooking time by 10 to 15 minutes if you're not on team tender.)

We recommend using a four to five pound octopus which feeds four people. You can use a smaller or larger octopus but, if you like a firmer texture, make sure you check the octopus for doneness after about an hour of cooking. This is especially the case if you opt for a smaller octopus as we did.

After preheating an oven to 400°f / 200°c, start by unwrapping the octopus. Be not afraid!!

Grab it by the body and reach under the base of the head. You'll see the beak/eye. Reach behind the beak and squeeze. The beak will then pop out. Once it's popped, use a knife to slice the beak off. It's official - your octopus is now clean and ready for cooking.

Drizzle olive oil generously over the bottom of a glass baking dish and place the octopus on top of the oil.

Evenly spread peppercorns over the octopus and then place the onion quarters evenly around the octopus in the pan.

Douse the top of the raw octopus with more olive oil.

Cover the octopus pan tightly with aluminium foil and place it in the oven. Set the timer for 90 minutes.

In the meantime, place the potatoes in a bowl of cold water. About 35 minutes before the octopus is done cooking, remove the potatoes from the water and place it a baking pan and sprinkle salt evenly over the potatoes. Mix the potatoes until they're covered with a thin but generous layer of salt.

With 30 minutes left on the timer, place the baking dish with the potatoes on a separate rack in the oven.

About 5 minutes before the octopus is cooked, heat the olive oil in a small sauce pan. Add garlic cloves and fry for a couple minutes until they're brown on the edges. Remove the pan from the heat.

Remove the octopus and potatoes from the oven. Remove the foil from the octopus and check for doneness by sticking a knife into the octopus. The knife should remove easily. Do the same with the potatoes.

Gently brush the salt off the potatoes and smash them with your hand (palm or fist) or gently with a spatula.

It's now time to plate the dish.

Start by laying down the potatoes. Covering the potatoes neatly with the octopus slices. Pour on the hot garlic oil (including the cloves) and garnish with chopped cilantro or parsley.

The finished dish is ideal for a holiday meal. However, it tastes great any time of the year.

This recipe was originally published on 2foodtrippers. Consider subscribing to 2foodtrippers if you enjoyed it.