Richard Rosenthal
Norm Corley in Greece
BBQ List
Octopus

Norm~
  Thanks for the Octopus posting.  Sounds like more of a challenge catching an octopus than it is to catch crabs, squids, or sea urchins.  Did you ever try the octopus on your 12 year old rebuilt water smoker? Here's how I do my octopus:
Published on January 13, 2002, Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) 

This octopus has legs Dmitri's signature dish is still simple and succulent. <

Dmitri Chimes is dismissive, or at least self-deprecating, 
when I bring up the octopus that has made his name - if not 
particularly the man himself - famous in this city. The puzzlement, 
he says, is how simple it is: You defrost frozen octopus, 
pull the head off, boil the stuff in water, jug vinegar and bay leaves, 
grill it to order, and toss it Greek-style with olive oil, vinegar and parsley. 
"It's not," he says, "like making spinach pie."
______________________________________________________________

The way I do octopus here is definitely different than the method on the WSM
site.  Usually I don't have to buy octopus because I go out and get my own,
either snorkeling or fishing for them. If I'm feeling lazy frozen octopus is
available everywhere. After I get a couple or three I spend the next hour or so
tenderizing the things on a rock very close to the water.  I pound and rub the
hell out of them until a soapy looking foam starts forming then I continue
for awhile before rinsing them in sea water.  Usually takes 20 minutes to half
an hour to tenderize.  Luckily you can do this one with one hand while holding
a beer in the other.  Cleaning's easy, cut around the beak and eyes, turn the
head inside out and remove everything then strip the skin from the head and
mantle.  Before cooking I rinse them well and let them drain.  I simmer them in
a covered pot with a little wine vinegar, the octopus will put out enough
liquid to keep from burning.  When they turn pinkish red and feel fork tender I
take them out of the pot and toss them on a grill over medium coals.  When the
tips of the tentacles start blackening I take them off and they're ready to
eat.    Guaranteed non-rubberband texture octopus.  Serve with ouzo and a greek
salad.

http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/octopus.html

Octopus - If you've read the Salmon - Brown Sugar Rub topic on this Web site, 
you know that I'm not a big seafood fan. And believe me, I would never prepare 
octopus on my WSM. However, I have two friends who did just that, and the 
pictures were so compelling that I felt I had to share them with you.

These pictures were sent to me by Geoff Hamamoto and Kevin Kawahara in May 2001 
when they smoked two tako (Japanese for octopus) on Geoff's Weber Bullet. 
Be warned--the pictures are not for the squeamish!

Cleaning & Marinating The Octopus - According to Kevin, the two octopus 
were caught in a secret spot off the island of Oahu and frozen whole in 
a plastic bag for a year. He placed the plastic bag in cool water for a 
few hours to defrost the meat, then put it in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Kevin said that despite the year in the freezer, there were no signs of 
freezer burn, which he attributes to the octopus' tough skin. 
Freezing fresh octopus is also considered to be a method of tenderizing 
the tough meat. After defrosting, the first step was to clean out the head. 
"This is done by turning the head inside out," says Kevin. "If done 
carefully, all the guts and ink sac will be intact and can be separated 
without spilling stuff all over the meat. I cut out the beak, eyes and 
brain stuff, leaving a big pile of slimy octopus meat that is totally edible."

The next step was to de-slime and tenderize the octopus. This is done by 
firm massage with Hawaiian sea salt. "You salt it up, massage it, 
let it rest, rinse, and repeat until all the slime is gone," says Kevin. 
"Some people beat the meat on a board with a bat or stick to tenderize it, 
but I prefer to 'lomi'* the meat by hand."

At this point the octopus was ready to marinate. In retrospect Kevin felt 
he should have let it soak for a while in cool water to rinse it better, 
because it ended up being a little salty after marinating and cooking.
The octopus was marinated for about 30 hours in a mixture of sake*, 
mirin*, shoyu*, sesame oil, salt, garlic, black pepper, 
dried red pepper flakes, and shichimi*. This marinade was inspired by 
a recipe posted by MattD on The Virtual Weber Bulletin Board.

Picture 1 shows the octopus in marinade. Pictures 2 and 3 show Kevin 
holding up one of the octopus. Picture 4 shows the two octopus ready to go into the cooker.

Smoking The Tako - Geoff and Kevin lit a full Weber chimney of 
Kingsford charcoal, dumped the hot coals into the charcoal ring, 
then added a bit more unlit Kingsford for good measure. When the coals 
were all hot, they filled the water pan and placed some split kiawe smoke 
wood on the coals. Picture 1 shows Geoff and Kevin putting the octopus 
into the WSM. The smaller octopus went on the lower grate and the larger 
one on the top. Kevin says, "Since the head is like a deflated balloon, 
I cut them open so they would lay flat," as shown in Picture 2.
The top octopus was finished in 1-1/2 hours, while the bottom one cooked 
about 30 minutes longer. Picture 3 shows the finished tako coming out of the smoker.

To prepare the head meat, Kevin peeled off the fatty skin and cut the meat 
into ringlets. "Perfectly done," says Kevin. "Very soft, though a bit salty, 
but the smoke taste was awesome." He then made tako poke* by cutting up some 
of the leg meat and mixing it with sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds, 
green onion, a little sweet onion, and inamona*. This mixture, shown in 
Picture 4, helped cut the saltiness and was "ono"*. Kevin concludes, 
"I can't wait to do it again. Maybe next time I'll do some 'ika'* and 'awabi'*, as well."

* Translations: 
* Tako: octopus (Japanese)
* Sake: Japanese rice wine
* Mirin: sweetened sake used in cooking
* Shoyu: authentic Japanese soy sauce
* Shichimi: a Japanese red pepper mix
* Inamona: roasted, ground kukui nut mixed with salt; popular in Hawaiian cooking
* Kukui: Hawaii's state tree, also known as the candlenut tree
* Lomi: massage, crush, rub (Hawaiian)
* Poke: small, bite-sized pieces; in this instance, seafood cut into small pieces 
and mixed with condiments making a seafood salad (Hawaiian)
* Ono: delicious (Hawaiian)
* Ika: squid or cuttlefish (Japanese)
* Awabi: abalone (Japanese)

Photographs of octopus preparation and smoking: 2001 by Naoko Hamamoto.
Photograph of tako poke: 2001 by Kevin Kawahara.
-----Original Message-----
From: Norm Corley [mailto:ncorley@otenet.gr]
Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2002 4:32 AM
To: BBQ@thesmokering.com
Subject: [BBQ] Don't Read This Di. I'm Talking Octopus Again.


On Wed, 26 Jun 2002 10:18:15 -0400Rosenthal Richard J CRPH
<RosenthalRJ@nswccd.navy.mil>wrote:

>Same with octopus, you have to boil it first too.
Don't, repeat DON'T, boil a perfectly good octopus in water.  Just toss it in
the pot with a little vinegar, basalmic's GOOD, and let it simmer in its own
juices until it turns pinkish red and is fork tender.  You can then either eat
it as it is or toss it on the grill for awhile to give it a little extra
charcoaled flavor, like them excellent blackened crunchy tentacle tips.  A
glass or twelve of just about any brand of Mytilini Ouzo is mandatory to go
with this delicacy. 

Hmmmmm, done flung a cravin' on myself for some octupus.  Think I'll head down
to the beach and see what I can find.  Since octopi are really sloppy
housekeepers all you have to look for is a bunch of busted up shells outside
their "house" then grab 'em and hope they're not big enough to hold you down.
Getting loose from an octopus that's latched on to your arm, and has other
tentacles latched on to a rock, can be difficult.  If you want to cheat and get
'em out of their hole just carry a small squeeze bottle of bleach and squirt a
little in the hole.  At least that'll give you some idea of what size you're
dealing with because they come out of the hole REAL fast.  Another method is to
carry white plastic bags with you.  Wave the bag around in front of the hole
and usually the octopus will grab it.  They're attracted to white.  Whup the
bag inside out and you've got a bagged octopus.  About the biggest one I've
seen here was about five feet long from the head to the tip of the tentacles.
The tentacles were about four inches in diameter where they joined the mantle.
Luckily that one was caught on a lure.  It was big enough to drown anyone
trying to bring it up by hand.  Had to make octopus steak out of that one.

On another subject our Aussie friend Steve asked for price comparisons.

>Talkin about money n stuff - just curious, - what do you guys pay for a
>gallon of gas (on average) - I'll do the conversions? 

Right now, and it fluctuates almost daily, I'm paying a little over 80 euro for
a liter of gas.  That works out to about $3.60 U.S. a gallon since the euro to
dollar is almost one to one right now.  What are you paying in Oz?

Norm
