5 Ingredients or Fewer

Chinese Celery and Baby Octopus, the Vietnamese way

March  9, 2012
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  • Serves 4
Author Notes

This is a classic preparation in Vietnam, except usually we make it with squid. The baby octopus just looked really good at the market that time, so we thought - why not? With squid, you would slice it thin or score criss-cross on a 2x2'' piece of squid, to make it cook fast without getting chewy, and absorb the sauce. I took a chance with baby octopus and saute it really fast, and then cut it up when we eat. There is a slight chewy texture, but not in a bad way!! —matchaflan

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Ingredients
  • 1 pound baby octopus, cleaned
  • 1 bunch Chinese celery
  • 2 tomatoes, sliced
  • 3 tablespoons fish sauce, or to taste
  • 3 tablespoons sriracha
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 1 onion
Directions
  1. 1. Marinade the octopus in sriracha, fish sauce and juice of half a lemon for 15-20 minutes. In the meantime wash and cut the long Chinese celery into thirds or quarters (length-wise).
  2. 2. In a large saute pan, saute the onion until soft , then add the celery and saute for 5 minutes until soft but still a bit crunchy. Add the baby octopus and its marinade and stir quickly, saute only until just cooked (the meat will be pokeable with a chopstick, not transparent, not too soft).
  3. Push the octopus to the outside rim of your pan where it's less hot, or you can even REMOVE the octopus from the pan. Add the tomatoes last for another 3-5 minutes until just cooked. If you have a really really large pan, you can put in the octopus and tomatoes together at the same time. Serve and enjoy!
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