On my last trip to Australia (Perth), I was invited on a lobster boat (crayfisher they called themselves) .
One of the boxes pulled out of the water had a large (1,5m from arm to arm) octopus in it, and only some remaining casing of the lobster. The fishermen, not happy for getting an octopus for a lobster, invited me anyway to a grilled octopus "Australian" style.
Each octopus arm was cut off and seriously hammered down (using a large meat hammer) to transform a 5cm diameter arm into a 3-5mm thick filet, still raw at the time. Then it was just put about 30 seconds on each side on the charcoal grill, while only adding some sea salt and a nice quite tender octopus filet was served.
I'm in Portugal and trying to get the same result, but my "filet" just shrinks and rolls-up when putting it on the grill. Do I need to get the skin off first? If so how can I manage, I tried but was not able.
I can also imagine eventually a difference in the species caught in Portugal to the one in Australia and what I try is simply not possible?
2 octopus arms hammered down into a filet,
on the grill they shrank and curled-up, but tasted great and quite tender anyway
