Baked Octopus

How to prepare baked octopus. Today we are going to prepare a recipe with octopus , another classic in my house and that you have asked me several times to publish, specifically baked octopus with potatoes . It is a simple and very easy preparation, which is usually used as a cover in many areas of Murcia and is the star dish of many restaurants in Galicia. An exquisite octopus, baked and with a few drops of lemon on a bed of vegetables and potatoes, Sunday food of those to succeed, I assure you.

This recipe will delight anyone who likes octopus, I also assure you that it will be perfect with all the secrets to cook the octopus at its point. A recipe that will please even those who only eat octopus in the traditional, cooked way. We can cook octopus in infinite ways: the classic cooked, baked, candied (Miguel Martín de Pulpo Portela told me, which was one of Picasso’s favorites), in tempura … there is a beyond after octopus à feira or Galician .

In Galicia you can find very famous preparations such as Mugardos , which is still a seafood stew. Grilled octopus is also highly appreciated or if you have a grill and a little firewood, grilled. But in the oven, most do not usually prepare it and the octopus is great, with a different and crisp touch of the churruscadita skin. This type of preparation is sensational, the oven seals the meat, giving it a crispy texture on the outside and tasty and tender on the inside.

Cooking an octopus is quite an experience, handling those ostentatious, soft and sticky tentacles is incredible, but a little less than savoring it. When I cook an octopus I usually use the heads to make croquettes , the tips of the legs for this recipe and the rest to make large carvings for the octopus à feira . Once the head and ends are cooked, they go directly to the freezer, thus saving time to make this dish. The baked octopus that I present to you today goes without too many decorations, to enjoy the concentrated flavors of this magnificent cephalopod.

The advice for this recipe to be perfect is not to go through the oven, it does not need excessive baking, in this case about 25 minutes of baking and 5 minutes of gratin, even a little less, would be enough to enjoy an octopus of yummy. Here I leave you with a recipe of ten, you will tell me if you prepare it.

Preparation of baked octopus with potatoes

1. We take the octopus out a day before the freezer and put it in the fridge to defrost. It is very important to do it in a saucepan or a large bowl because it will release a lot of liquid and it can overflow. At the time of cooking we pass it a little through cold water to remove possible impurities.
2. We put a casserole (the largest we have) on the fire with water and a whole peeled onion, we do not add salt because the octopus is salted at the end, in the presentation. When it starts to boil we add the octopus: we take it by the head and “scare it”, this technique consists of putting the octopus in and out 3 times from the pot to make it stiff and the skin does not fall off during cooking.
3. We cook the octopus for about 30 minutes over medium heat (it will depend on the size). You have to puncture it from time to time to see how hard it is, this time we are going to leave it almost done but not so much as to prepare it feira. If we want the octopus to make it Galician, you will need 15 more minutes. If you do not have the possibility to cook the octopus you can buy it already cooked in any fishmonger or supermarket, it does not come out the same but for a fix it can be worth it.
4. Peel the onions, the leek and the tomato. We cut them into brunoise, into small cubes.
5. In a baking dish we place a bed with the vegetables that we have reserved, which we lightly salt.
6. We prepare the potatoes, wash, peel and cut into large slices, if the potatoes are large it is better to cut in half. Once salted, place them in a large baking dish on top of the vegetable bed, drizzling with extra virgin olive oil. Pour half a glass (100ml) of the octopus cooking water or two generous streams of white wine. We put in the oven previously hot at 180ºC for 20 minutes.
7. Cut the octopus into large pieces and place on top of the potato bed. Sprinkle with the lemon juice and bake for another 12-15 minutes at 180º C, this depends on the thickness of the octopus’s legs. 2 minutes before removing the octopus we put it to gratin. We watch that it does not dry too much, I advise you to try a carving to see how it is of texture and flavor, it should be tender on the inside and crispy on the outside.
8. Sprinkle with a little paprika from La Vera to give that plate a smoky touch and color.
9. We serve very hot. The dish as you see in the photo, a generous base of vegetables and roasted potato and the pieces of octopus on top, all that remains is to pour a little sauce on top and sprinkle with a few flakes of salt.
10. Among my guests there are those who have opined that with the lemon, the paprika was left over, others, however, have preferred to ignore the lemon, in which we have all agreed that the octopus was impressive.

To serve the octopus we can do it on the same baking tray and once on the table distribute to each diner. To accompany the fish in this preparation you can have a simple salad, and to drink, of course, a fresh white wine. A simple recipe that I am used to with an incredible flavor, totally delicious.

Be sure to enjoy all the recipes for fish and seafood that we have on the blog, I assure you that you will find a lot of ideas to make yours much happier. You can see all the photos of the step by step in the next album.