Before coming to Costa Rica I had never worked with AmberJack.  It’s a tricky fish to cook and I would only recommend flash grilling in 1 inch thick steaks, if you must cook it at all.  However, lately the fisherman have been catching heaps of them, and I’ve been serving it thinly sliced as a carpaccio, and the feedback has been nothing but positive.

My favorite preparation involves chilling the viagras in the freezer for a minimum of 15-20 minutes (while you prepare the rest..), using a sashimi or very sharp knife, thinly slice your 2 inch thick steaks across the grain (count on about 100 grams per person when buying), arrange the fish flat on a plate in whatever decorative pattern you choose, squeeze fresh lime juice all over the fish and stategically place thin jalepeno rounds over top, give the fish a few minutes to “cook” with the lime juice and then drizzle a good quality olive oil over top, sprinkle with finely chopped cilantro,  a pinch of smoked sea salt and freshly ground pepper, then garnish with fresh lime and cilantro sprigs, serve!   So good you won’t want to cook it (with fire) ever again.

Octopus is one of my all time favorites….if it’s cooked correctly.

When I first became interested in working with octopus I found a recipe in the first Nobu cookbook.  We tried out a rough approximation, and guess what?  It worked.

I really believe that most of the people that tell me they don’t like octopus feel that way because they’ve had it prepared badly and spent a couple hours chewing on it.  The following recipe is fool proof  (personally tested at least a hundred times).  We’ve tweaked it out over the years and added my own touches, but the idea is still more or less the same.

• Fill a large stock pot about 1/2 way full of water and place to boil.  I like to add some roughly chopped ginger and/or garlic, white onion, whole pepper corns and a couple tablespoons of sea salt to the water.
• Take your whole octopus and place it in a large bowl, rinse well, and drain the water.  Cover the octopus completely with coarse sea salt and scrub it all over, rinse and repeat until it no longer feels slimy.
• Place your octopus flat on a cutting board and cover with plastic wrap.  Using a rolling pin or a daikon radish firmly pound the octopus all over.  Don’t hit it too hard cause you don’t want to break the skin.
• Once the water is boiling reduce the heat to medium-low.  Holding your octopus by the head with tongs (or your hand) slowly dip the tips of the tentacles into the boiling water so that they curl up.  Continue dipping and moving your way up the tentacles until they’ve curled up tightly, then drop the whole octopus into the water.
• Once the water has returned to a rapid boil, reduce the heat to simmer and cover almost completely, leaving the lid partially open so that it doesn’t boil over.
• I usually leave it to simmer for about and hour, and then kill the heat and leave the octopus in the water until it has cooled, about another hour.  After you remove it from the cooled water place it it in a colander to drain.
• Next place it on a cutting board and remove the head and beak, and then section the tentacles.  At this point you can go in any direction you’d like with it.

I often marinade and grill my octopus, in which case I leave the skin on because it gets nice and crispy.  However, if I’m making a ceviche or carpaccio I slide off the purple skin (leaving the tentacles in tact) when I’ve just removed it from the warm water.

This recipe probably sounds a lot more complicated than it it, but trust me, it’s worth it.  You can prepare it a day or two in advance to save time but it’s always best the same day.  If you do chill it make sure that you allow it to come back up to room temperature before serving.

Provecho!