Octopus + Wine Cork
Posted by Roy on September 27, 2011I had a lovely couple, John and Fran, on board my Gourmet Wine Tour this month. During the day Fran mentioned she had discovered a recipe in a popular women’s magazine that boils octopus together with wine corks to make it really tender.
Curiosity got the better of me and on the return home I stopped by my local fish shop, Darren’s Seafood, to buy some octopus. Unfortunately they had sold out but to my surprise when I mentioned the recipe with the wine corks, Darren said he had heard this method from numerous people. He said he would have more octopus in tomorrow. That night I ‘Googled’ for recipes and more information about this recipe, hoping for an scientific explanation. There seamed to be a 50% split belief on whether this is truth or myth.
The following evening I boiled half a kilogram of octopus with a few wine corks and half a kilogram without. After 25 minutes of boiling with lids on the saucepans I turned off the gas and let the pots gradually cool down. A few hours later, I removed the octopus and added them to separate bowls of marinate – a little soy sauce, garlic and chilli. The following evening both batches were cooked on the same hot plate at the same time for about 10 minutes.
The different batches were then place in front of a few friends. I asked everyone to decide which batch was better. The consensus was that both batches tasted the same – very tender.
The questions now are: Was it the octopus recipe that made it so tender? And do I need to try a different recipe where the octopus would normally end up tough to see if the wine corks makes a difference?