Bobby Flay's Weird Hack for Perfect Octopus
Plus, the worst dish he's ever made for his daughter.
Anders Krusberg
If you love octopus, you know that this delicious, low-fat protein can go from lusciously tender to rubber bandy within seconds. The usual way to deal with this is to cook it hot and fast or low and slow. While filming a recent Facebook live to promote an upcoming travelogue with his daughter Sophie, The Flay List, Bobby dropped some knowledge on us about how he always turns out perfect octopus.
His odd little hack is to braise the octopus with the wine corks. “It might be an old Greek wives’ tale, but I’ve been doing it for 20 years this way and the octopus is always tender,” says Bobby. “We save the wine corks and we put it in the braising liquid with the octopus and they say there’s an enzyme that makes it tender.” Hey, if its good enough for Bobby, it’s good enough for us!
During the filming, Sophie also dropped a bombshell about the worst thing her father has ever made for her. At on of his restaurants, Bobby put a Lobster Mac and Cheese on the menu that Sophie just did not like. “I’m a big mac and cheese fan, also a big lobster fan, but I don’t really like them together. That was true when I tasted it,” admits Sophie. “She didn’t like it,” says Bobby. “I took it off the menu. It was on the menu for two days. If it’s not good enough or Sophie, it’s not good enough to be on the menu.” Aww.
For more fun father/daughter banter and to find out their top dining picks in the Big Apple, watch The Flay List premiering Thursday, August 22 at 10:30|9:30c.
