If you’ve bought frozen octopus, defrost it entirely before cooking.

Place the whole octopus into a heavy bottom pan/casserole with absolutely nothing else – I mean it. Just put it in there. No oil, no salt – nada.

Pop the lid on, place on the smallest flame/heat your stove can produce and let it be for 1h30-1h50m subject to the size of your octopus.

NB: For a 1.6kg octopus I typically cook it for about 1h50m. The octopus will be tender! So tender – it’s beaut.

Check it occasionally. If it’s sticking slightly to the base of your pan, add a dash of water to loosen, and rotate the octopus.

Remove the octopus from the pan and allow to cool enough to handle.

Cut the tentacles away from the head so you have individual pieces – I also like to cut the thin ends off from the tentacles and save them to make some marinated octopus along with the head, but you don’t have to do this of course 🙂

Drizzle the tentacles with olive oil and grill on a hot BBQ for a few min on each side until nicely charred.

Serve with fresh chopped parsley and lots of fresh lemon juice.