Korean-style Spicy baby Octopus Stirfry
Have you ever walked past baby octopus in the shops and wondered how to cook it? This Spicy Baby Octopus stirfry is beginner friendly and a great way to start out cooking with baby octopus! This delicious dish is quick, easy and healthy. It is also a one-wok wonder, making cleanup a breeze. If you want to make something different for dinner give this Spicy Baby Octopus Stirfry a try tonight!
This recipe is inspired by the Korean dish Nakji-bokkeum. It’s flavoured with soy sauce, gochujang and corn syrup. The main flavours are spicy and sweet-savoury. It’s moreish and really opens up the appetite, making it great to pair with rice or noodles, as the filling of a lettuce wrap or as snack for beer and drinks.
Cooking with baby octopus
Baby octopus is much easier to clean and cook with than large octopus as it is much more tender and you don’t have to worry about it tenderising it before hand. If you have never cooked with octopus before, it may seem intimidating but once you try it out you will realise it is quite easy! The easiest way to clean and prepare the octopus is with a pair of scissors.
Firstly, snip off the head, right above the eyes and then cut again right under the eyes. You should now have three sections – the head, the eyes and the tentacles. You can discard the eyes. Secondly, you need to squeeze out the “beak” which is a little hard brown shell like thing from the centre of the tentacles. Thirdly, flip the head inside out and remove all the innards, I usually just pull it off but you can use the scissors to snip them off. Lastly, sprinkle salt over the tentacles and heads, massage well to clean the octopus thoroughly, then rinse with water. Now your octopus is cleaned, prepared and read to be cooked with!
What should I add into the stirfry?
Always add onion and garlic for flavour! But the vegetables for the stirfry can be flexible. I recommend starting out with the recipe to familiarise yourself with the cooking of the octopus, then once you are more confident you can switch up the vegetables to keep things interesting. I usually use carrots and zucchinis as the base vegetables, and sometimes sugarloaf cabbage if I have it on hand.
In this recipe, I am using Lebanese cucumber instead of zucchini, and also added beansprouts for crunch. Cucumber and beansprouts cook very fast, so I only add it to the wok at the very end. Whereas, if I am cooking with zucchini, I will add it around the same time as the baby octopus. One thing to note, when you start playing with using different vegetables, is the cooking times. Baby octopus is fairly forgiving, but it will still be too chewy if you overcook it!
What should I serve Spicy Baby Octopus Stirfry with?
This delicious dish can be served as a main, side dish or drinking snack! It’s very versatile and and has a good balance of healthy protein and veggies. This dish goes very well with rice or noodles. I love to eat this in lettuce wraps! The leftovers are great for lunchboxes, or on a summer’s day its nice to have it chilled and tossed through a leafy salad. You can also pair this dish with a side of golden kimchi for a perfect beer snack!
Spicy Baby Octopus Stir-fry
Equipment
- Scissors
- Wok
- Spatula
- Knife
- Chopping board
Ingredients
- 500 g baby octopus
- 1 tbsp salt for cleaning the octopus
- 1-2 tbsp Gochujan
- 1 tbsp soy sauce Korean
- 2 tsp sesame oil Korean
- 1 tbsp Corn syrup Substitute with Honey
- 1 Brown onion
- 1 Carrot
- 1 Lebanese cucumber or Zucchini
- 100 g bean sprouts
- 1 tbsp Oil grapeseed
- 2 tsp garlic minced
Instructions
- Prepare the octopus first. Using the scissors, cut the head off above the eyes. Also cut the tentacles from right below the eyes and discard the eyes. Remove the beak from the centre of the tentacles by squeezing it. Flip the head inside out and remove all innards. Repeat with all the octopus and sprinkle with salt. Massage thoroughly to clean for 5 mins and rinse well with water.
- Cut the octopus into bite size pieces. I like to cut the head into 2-4 pieces depending on the size of the octopus. Cut the tentacles into single tentacles if they are quite large, or into twos. Set aside
- Slice the onion. Peel the carrot and slice in half length wise. Then cut into thin diagonal slices. Cut the cucumber in a similar fashion.
- Soak and rinse the beansprouts in water, remove the root ends if you would like.
- Heat up your wok, when it starts to smoke, drizzle in the grapeseed oil.
- Add the onions and garlic into the wok and stir fry until fragrant, around 1 min. Add in the carrots and stir fry for 2-3mins.
- add in the baby octopus and stir fry into the vegetables. Drizzle in the soy sauce and add in 1 tbsp of gochujang and stir fry to mix the sauces in well, for around 30 seconds. You can add more gochujang if you would like it to be more spicy.
- Add in the corn syrup and stir fry well for 1 min. The baby octopus should start to curl and turn opaque. Add in the cucumber followed by the bean sprouts. If you are using zucchini and not cucumber, add the zucchini first and saute for 2 mins until slightly softened before adding in the bean sprouts.
- Taste and adjust the seasoning, drizzle in the sesame oil and stir fry well for 30 seconds, before removing from heat. Serve immediately.
