Grilled Octopus

Servings: 4

ingredients:

• 4 lb octopus

• 1 clove garlic, thinly sliced. Want more garlic, go for two

• ½ tsp rep pepper flakes

• zest of 1 lemon

• ¼ cup torn parsley leaves

• 4-6 tbsp red wine vinegar

• Optional - salad accompaniments

Directions:

Buy your octopus fresh. Braise it for 2.5 hours in a deep pan at 250 degrees. No need to salt it or doing anything. Just get it on the pan, foil it tightly and braise. Even 3 hours is fine! Take it out, pat it down dry and cut off the legs into longer pieces.

Next, make your marinade by combining garlic, red pepper flakes, zest, parsley and the red wine vinegar in a bowl. Add the octopus legs and marinate for a full 48 hours. The key here is that the marinade needs to be acid based so it can really work overnight. If there is too much olive oil, it gets cold in the fridge and coagulates. You want this to be a vinegar based liquid so overnight it really breaks down that octopus.

Then its easy! Light the braai, pour a class of wine and put a cast iron on the braai to get very hot. Really, the octopus is already cooked, so you just need to braai for grill marks and smoke. We like to get a nice char, slice it up and serve it two ways - longer pieces like you would get at a great restaurant and then we make a salad with the chopped up body. Lots of chopped olives, garlic, oil, salt - parsley is nice too.