Pickled Octopus and Salad
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 60 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients
-----------
1kg 500g South West Octopus
200ml water
200ml vinegar
2 cups white vinegar / 2 cups red wine vinegar
6 small dried chilli, or 1 tbsp chilli flakes
3 garlic cloves
3 bay leaves
2 tbsp coriander seeds
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 tbsp black peppercorns
Olive oil
Method
-----------
1. Clean octopus and remove slime. Place octopus in a large saucepan with enough water and vinegar to cover. Simmer uncovered for one hour on a low heat, until octopus is soft when you prick it. Remove, and cool. You can even place it into the refrigerator to cool at this point, make sure you cover it with cling film before placing into refrigerator. Once cold, remove from liquid and cut into thin, bite sized slices.
2. For the pickling liquid, place the vinegar in a saucepan with dried chilli, bay, thyme, coriander seeds. Bring to boil and remove from heat. Let it come to room temp, then pour over the octopi. Add some more vinegar if you need more. In the jars, distribute the chilli’s, garlic cloves, bay leaves, peppercorns, thyme, coriander seeds.
3. Add 1 inch of olive oil on top. Don’t let any of the octopus poke through the oil or it will rot.
4. Cover the jar and keep in a cool dark place, shaking every now and then. Then transfer to refrigerator. It will be ready to eat after a week. Pickled octopus will keep 1-2 months in refrigerator.
To serve the pickled octopus, drain from the bottle and sprinkle with fresh or dried oregano and parsley. You can serve it in a salad, with other tomatoes, radish, pickled cabbage and other fresh items as I have or even by adding it to a potato salad.
