Greek Grilled Octopus by Chef G

hi I'm chef G and I cooked at some of the best restaurants in the world and I cooked for you today as I promised in the house that's the way that's the way Yaya what is she doing hanging the octopus on the rocks we haven't done that in years actually in the high-end Greek restaurants I used to work at Shh don't tell anybody but we used to use a washing machine hand full of kosher salt and the washing machine would banging around but now thanks to modern conveniences on the boats these machines that look like this is the way we do it back in goodies sun-dried hang them a clothesline it's really easy how to prepare the octopus you gotta cut the head off so I always cut the head off right under the eye socket I can't believe some of the pantsless doesn't make a mess you don't have to but there's also a beet and you probably want to use the head later on but we'll talk about that in another another episode you can make things called sea follow and octopus rice and fun stuff like that and then the trick here is you see the beak right in here if you want to come close there's the beat right see it popping out what I do is I just cut it by 100 tentacles so we could open her up just keep on going so we could open her up and there you go see how the beak is right there and the beak you want to cut out put the beak right out you see that how beautiful how easy that is just to cut that little guy out this is the easy part you know just like that so we separating like that I take it and I put it in a nice famous steel pan like this you could use a bigger one if you want but they all spring down this is a nice thing my steel pan and this is the trick - yeah I put the aromatics on some carrots dump them all in salary just dump that in nice and quick the bay leaves dump that all in I do a couple of cloves of garlic and have enough garlic some peppercorns just like that peppercorns a little Greek oregano and you cover it with red wine vinegar just like that red wine vinegar cover it to the top and then I like to add at this point a little red wine and I like to keep it all covered just like that you see that if you want to add a little bit of salt in it you can you know um we normally don't Indians will you do that later on the picking process and just like this then you cover little luminol foil and I'll show you guys how is bake it in the oven if you go to your fishmonger and ask them all octopus comes frozen what the different sizes are make sure you get this stuff that's Portuguese or it's really African and Mantic the Philippines stuff is a little bit cheaper but it's not as good and I really don't use her we just use the best quality and that's it wrap it up with a little bit of foil just like so and I baked it in the oven at 400 degrees for non convection oven if you have a convection oven 350 375 but I put this at 400 pop that bad boy right into the oven and put it close to the bottom and that's it I let it bake for about an hour and a half is a technique that's cold pork tender I'm sure you've heard it a million times well you basically take a skewer or knife I don't know why they call it they usually use a fork back in the day but now we use a knife or a skewer and it's kind of the same way like a potato when you're testing a potato you stick this here in and if it comes out easy it's ready don't overcook your octopus okay you got it all right it's been about an hour and a half so time to check it pick it up a little bit more but I actually checked it about 10-15 minutes ago and so we take our skewer like we said and I take it and I look for the fattest part of the octopus we lift it up a little bit for you that is part of the octopus is about midway from the tentacle and we just put that in just like so look at how I'm doing it and you see that and look that just pops right up nice and so now I do remember you don't want the octopus to overcook let's have it overcooks then it becomes to mealy you want to just so much residual and octopus is very gelatinous right this is not the time to cook this octopus I always let it chill in the refrigerator at least until it's cold probably about 15 to 20 minutes all right so now we're gonna pop this in the fridge for a little bit get a cold alright guys so that's the reason why also this octopus is streaked like this going down this because we didn't bail it when you boil the octopus it's like abusing and banging it around so when you bake it in a pan with the tentacles straight it keeps the tentacles nice and straight and doesn't abuse them cooks it slowly like a slow poach and all I do here is very easy is we just separate the tentacles you know I separate them all and these are the good pits I actually like grilling the tips because they're the crunchy little parts at the end and I like so at this time you see how this all this gelatinous on it this is a good firm beautiful octopus by the way and at this point I think the time there might be a loose peppercorn you could take that off not a big deal and then I just cut all these away just like that nice and simple separating them from their from from the pot what I like to do is separate them a little bit and I like to put a little olive oil so I put them a little olive oil and I hit them with a little salt just like that getting them ready for the grill this is how I get them ready for the grill but what I really like to do is oil the grates it's very important to oil the grates so the octopus doesn't stick very important to oil the grates so you give the grates a nice good oiling this is nice and nice and oily there we go very important to do this part don't forget that step guys then then right on the hot grill just place the octopus I like to put it on the tentacle side there you go just like that put a wall over beautiful on the grill so we lightly olive oil them salt and pepper we oil the grill so it doesn't stick and we place them right on the grill like that look at how beautiful that is bad boys a flip and I'm just gonna brush it with a little extra virgin olive oil that I seasoned a little salt and pepper just give them a little brush not too much because then he'll get a flare-up light little brush I'm gonna keep sometimes you could do these with lemon but I'm gonna keep these two traditional ways we did it in the high-end Greek places back in the city so it's done with vinegar so we're gonna continue doing it with vinegar but just give it a nice little brush just like that and then this would have been cooking for about five minutes probably if I timed it'll probably be like 5 minutes and 45 seconds to be exact and then we're going to let it cook for another 2 to 3 minutes till it's nice and charred on the outside okay so it's been about 2 to 3 minutes and look at that beautiful char that's on there and there's getting a little bit closer this is beautiful char marks to me you know what I'm gonna pull these man and look at how those little tails got a little crispy those are gonna be my little goodness later I'm gonna I'm gonna steal those so that's it I'm gonna take these bad boys 10 Takai tentacles whatever you call them octopi off the grill just like this and we are gonna take it back to the kitchen and cut it up for you guys so now I'm ready to cut the octopus and what I said what I like to do with the little tips as I saved these for me so I cut off about a little bit like there and I'll be for me and these look at all oh my god guys look at that you can cut on a bias that's cutting like butter like butter just like that look at how beautiful that is Sam again I'll show you another one I cut off the little thing oh yeah just like that cut them in little round slices or you believe in mold mold put them on the plate several little olive oil lemon juice I'm just showing you how we make them at the high-end Greek places that I work all right and just keep on continuing to cut them and then you're good to go oh she likes it and I keep on cutting these like this came out perfect by the way look at how I cut those cut it this way so you guys can see just like that and you just arrange them on the platter in there you go in the other other restaurants I worked at we used to like put some red onions on the bottom with dill and stuff like that but you know you don't have to plus we don't kind of need to tell you the truth so this is the way I seasoned it at those high-end restaurants that I wore first we'd hit it with a little bit of salt right now then I would hit it with a little fresh pepper just like that and then some capers some of the capers I put on there loved the capers go with this dish perfectly and then some roasted peppers we made earlier look at how beautiful that's what you guys you can make a little bit of a mess we'll clean up right tonight's roasted peppers and then I put some parsley on top also a little sprinkle you can put mint dill you know just be creative guys you don't have to follow the rules you never follow the rules right always do it up a little bit and then what I like to do is I got to grab the vinegar red wine vinegar on there nice splash let's see you can see it I love the vinegar with the octopus look at how beautiful that looks right hit it with a good amount of olive oil you can mix it up I like to put finish up is also a little Greek oregano all over the place good amount just like that a sprinkling just like that you always want to taste you know it's delicious and let me see I like to look and if I don't see a little vinegar coming out I always add a touch more which I'm gonna add a touch more you see what I'm doing guys it's not an exact science a little bit of this a little bit of that and after a thousand times you'll get it to [Music] you good back to Greece we banging on the rugs I can't believe now they have a machine that does it for you and you don't have to hang it in the clothesline in the Sun Oh Papa let me taste to make sure that it tastes pretty good oh and I always have a little [Music] Oh with your upper body if that's a secret let me taste yes I give you soon which indeed is means bless your hands your go keep on cooking the way you do yeah I'm ed I'm glad she learned something finally from me after all these years I've been cooking for like 25 30 years I can't even count it anymore but you know yeah I am I prefer sequin di instead of huzzah with my octopus so I pour myself a little sequins yeah this does really look really good I like doing the same thing tip in mind and also you can my Peter Beck recipe goes really good with this let me give it a taste that deserves a chef's kiss shut up loser or seafoody I remember don't overcook your octopus and yesugai's lots of love from George [Music]

Channel: Chef G

Views: 47,553

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Id: 15QOsx7bgKE

Length: 14min 43sec (883 seconds)

Published: Mon May 04 2020