05 Dec How to cook frozen octopus: kitchen tricks
Not everybody knows the perfect way to cook frozen octopus. And not everybody’s aware that high quality frozen octopus has nothing to envy from the fresh, quite the opposite.
Of course it is well know that it is necessary to be particularly careful during cooking, because you risk to make it chewy and without flavor.
But let see some kitchen tricks to bring out all the qualities of the frozen octopus and to prepare delicious dishes at home as in a restaurant.
Fresh or frozen, buy an high quality octopus
The first trick to prepare delicious octopus dishes starts from the purchase.
One of the tricks to buy an high quality octopus is to check that the octopus has two rows of suckers in its tentacles. This is because it may happen that other mollusks, like the Moscardino (a small type of octopus), are sold as octopus.
For less than “experts” or when you have short time for shopping and cooking, buying frozen octopus is the ideal solution. In addition to saving time and energy at the stove, you will be sure to bring a real octopus to the table! The packaging of quality frozen fish, as well as other frozen foods, clearly shows the type of food and its origin. And that’s just one of the benefits of frozen food!
Frozen is good and sometimes even more than fresh octopus
Cooking frozen octopus is very simple and fast.
Not everyone knows this, but a quality frozen octopus, compared to the fresh one, tends to be more tender without needing special processing. The advantage of freezing in fact lies in the property of low temperatures, which act on the elasticity of the muscle fibres of the octopus, with the same effect of the beating. In addition, deep-freezing preserves the nutritional properties of octopus by guaranteeing a high quality mollusc.
Cook the octopus, do not drown it!
To cook the frozen octopus to the best you do not need to dip it in so much water, quite the opposite. Indeed the octopus releases liquids during cooking. You can put the frozen octopus in the pan with a drizzle of oil and odors to taste, without removing the skin and the suckers. The trick then lies in the slow cooking, over low heat, which keeps soft its meat.
You can cook frozen octopus in the pressure cooker
Many mistakenly think that cooking frozen octopus takes too long. One of the secrets to speed up cooking, without losing quality, is the use of the pressure cooker. At the end of cooking we recommend not to lift the lid and let cook the frozen octopus still immersed in its sauce. This method makes it possible to tenderize octopus meat.
The perfect cooking of frozen octopus
To cook the frozen octopus perfectly needs attention: its meat must not be too soft or flaked and in fact it must maintain its compactness without hardening. The best way to cook the frozen octopus is to throw it directly into the pan with little water and season it once cooked with chopped parsley, oil and salt. Even the cast iron plate allows you to cook the frozen octopus optimally giving it a tasty crunchy texture.
Octopus marries with endless dishes and recips, and is an important food to be inserted into an healthy diet.
Moreover, if the fresh demands greater familiarity, cooking the frozen octopus instead is simple and fast, without ever sacrificing goodness and quality.
Combine it with tomato sauce to prepare a fine seafood sauce, with potatoes or vegetables to enrich your salads, or simply roast it for a main course that everyone likes. Unleash your imagination.
Discover Sword’s frozen food world and delicious proposals of frozen fish and frozen gourmet ready meals, as delicious as fresh!
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