Day 20: March 13, 2015: Fast and Easy Marinated Baby Octopus with Green Olives and Pepperocini - Γρήγορο και Εύκολο Μικρό Χταποδάκι Ξυδάτο με Πράσινες Ελιές και Πράσινες Πιπεριές

The final product, created from start to finish in under 15 minutes. Nutritious, delicious, inexpensive and very easy to make. 

We have marinated a variety of foods including calamari, seafood mix, and octopus. But, with 25 days of fasting left, we needed this staple food to be easier to make. This recipe is inspired by something that we saw at the fish monger.

We go shopping at the fish monger to see what kind of new products arrive from Greece, to get inspired with something new to make, and to purchase various seafood items that we are allowed to have right now. We go there other times of year, too, but it just happens that it is now Great Lent and we shopped at the fish monger.

We like to look at the variety of products in the store. At this particular market, there is an entire section dedicated to products made in-house. We can just imagine the Yiayiades in the back kitchen making the seafood salads and the taramasalata! But, this was really the inspiration.

We were looking at the salads, wondering if there was something there that we would like to change our variety of seafood salads that we make regularly. We came upon a small container, 10 ounces, that had baby octopus, olives, hot peppers, and some carrots. As we read the ingredients, the list seems like one we would have created with oil, vinegar, lemon, olives, pepperoncini, and carrots. We have talked about using Italian salad dressing as the marinade for seafood, and about using lemon instead of vinegar. Ad, when we looked more closely, we saw that the fish monger had used mostly oil, with a small amount of vinegar resting on the bottom of the container.

Well, this 10-ounce package seemed to be everything we were thinking about. We stopped ourselves from buying this small container because for 10 ounces, the store was asking *$8.99, and we thought that was pricey for what we were getting.

That day, we bought the baby octopus, frozen in small packages. We bought two packages -- one to use now, and one to keep int he freezer for next time. These packages were on sale at a price of 2 for $6.00 (or something), which seemed cheaper than $9 for 10 ounces (about 300 g).



So, could we replicate the expensive baby octopus salad? We think we did. With a little creativity, and a little research, we found that copying the fish monger was surprisingly easy.

For this recipe, you will need the following:

1 10-ounce package baby octopus (approximately 300 g)
5-6 olives, pitted and chopped
3 pimentos (pickled pepper strips)
2-5 hot peppers
1-2 TBSP shredded carrots (optional)
Brine from the olives

dried oregano, as needed
salt, as needed
oil, as needed
red wine vinegar, as needed



As we have in the past, we are going to cook the baby octopus.  These packages where the baby octopus are all frozen together into a block are easy to use, but not always easy to cook.  Sometimes it helps to beak the brick in half and to cook it in two chunks.  To cook the octopus, boil some water.  Drop the octopus into the boiling water.  Be careful not to splash when dropping the octopus.  Boil the octopus for 5 minutes, uncovered.  The octopus will turn a deep purple/brown colour, and the water will too.  After 5 minutes, drain the water off the octopus, and rinse them in cool water.  The purple/brown skin may start to flake off, and that is fine.  It may be something that you want to rub off all together, just for appearances.  It is your choice.  We left ours as they were, purple skin and all, right out of the pot.

Make sure the octopus has been cleaned.  If need be, cut the head and remove the eye of the octopus.  It is hard and will ruin the end result of your final salad.

Then, cut the octopus into bite sized pieces.  You may choose to leave baby octopus in its whole form, which gives a lovely presentation.  Or, if you cut the octopus, make the pieces bite sized.

Once all the pieces are cut, sprinkle some salt over all the octopus.  We used about 1 teaspoon of salt for the 10 ounces of octopus.  This seems like a good guideline.  Of course, it is adjustable based on you taste for salt.

Then, add two pinches of oregano.  Depending on how much you like oregano, yo may want to add more or less.  Two pinches seemed like enough to taste, but not enough to take over the flavour.

Now, it is time to add about two teaspoons of brine from the olives, the oil, and the vinegar.  Add enough liquid to cover the octopus, but not enough that the octopus is swimming in the oil and vinegar. 

Now, it is time to add the olives, pimento, carrots, and hot peppers.  By using the existing mix of olives and peppers, we saved a lot of chopping of different vegetables.  This is a super easy way to enhance the salad if you don't have a lot of produce on hand.

Mix all the ingredients together.  If you have the time, allow the salad to marinade for a minimum of 3 hours.  If you do not have the time to do that, serve the salad with a  squirt of lemon juice and some crusty bread for a meal or an appetizer.  Then write to us and tell us how it turned out.

"Prayer is the seed of gentleness and the absence of anger."

(From the book The Sayings Of The Desert Fathers, pg. 153)