Ingredients
1 kg octopus
3 eggs beaten
1/4 cup milk
Directions
salt and pepper to taste finely chopped parsley olive oil
A friend born in Portugal supplied this simple and excellent example
of Portuguese home-cooking.
Precook 1 kg of octopus, drain and cool Cut it up into generous
chunks. Beat 3 eggs, with a little milk salt and pepper to taste, and
half a bunch of very finely chopped parsley. Coat the octopus pieces
in the egg mixture and shallow fry in a little olive oil, turning
them until are golden. Serve.
From Meryl Constance' column in the Sydney Morning Herald, "Raw
Materials". 3/2/93. Courtesy, Mark Herron.
Servings: 6 servings
Polvo Frito - Fried Octopus Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Seafood
The History of Recipes
Transcribed cooking instructions as an idea can be tracked far back into the far past, at least as far back as the ancient Egyptians, and potentially, even further back. Having said that, in the main part, these early records were just very basic hieroglyphic instructions for preparing meals.
Fascinatingly, the oldest recipe in existence, according to Professor Solomon Katz, are some ancient tablets in the Sumerian language which recount the preparation of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making those who drank it feel exhilarated. During the time of the Roman Empire a man called Apicius assembled a collection of scripts describing recipes cooked by wealthy roman citizens. In his works, Apicius recounts how the roman meals were separated into appetizers, entrees and desserts, a very modern way of dining. Aspicius also informs us how the chefs of Roman times made use of many different aromatic flavours, including some familiar names for example thyme, rue and asafoetida. As our culinary historical trip moves on a few more years there are a couple of interesting recipe books which were published in the 1300s - one book titled `Forme of Cury`, and another, similary named `Curye on Inglish`. Amusingly, these two books have no connection with the indian curry that we all know today, but rather descriptions of the types of food enjoyed by the upper classes of that period. In the fifteenth century, the Crusaders brought back many foods and herbs from the East, including spices such as coriander, parsley, and rosemary. These new spices and herbs led to an outbreak in books on cookery, the majority of which still exist in academic collections. Over the following few hundred years, the powerful families of the West competed with each other to lay on the most extravagent meals, and as a result chefs and their recipes were much in demand. Even so, it was during the 1800s that cookery and cookery books really came of age. Mrs Beeton in the UK, and Fannie Merritt Farmer in the US, dedicated the best years of their lives to collating, trying out, and writing down recipes of the day. By the arrival of the 20th century, recipe books are in high demand, mostly as a result of increased literacy, more spare time and having more money. |
We hope you enjoy this Polvo Frito Fried Octopus recipe.
