We are on vacation in an RV and are now camped near Venice. Most evenings we eat at restaurants to sample the local cuisine, but tonight we wanted to stay at the campsite and so I cycled to the local pescivendolo. Moscardini, baby octopus, are currently in season. Since I had an immersion circulator with me anyway for showing it to Marina, I thought it would be nice to cook the moscardini sous-vide. Just like regular octopus, the moscardini released a flavorful liquid that I used to make a simple pasta sauce. The result was very tasty indeed, with great depth of flavor. You could also make this with regular octopus, but the texture will be slightly different and the cooking time longer.
Ingredients
For 2 servings
400 grams (.9 lb) baby octopus, to end up with 300 grams of cleaned octopus
150 grams (.33 lb) linguine
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbsp minced fresh flat leaf parsley
1/2 onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 celery stalk, minced
60 ml (1/4 cup) dry white wine
Preparation
Clean the baby octopus by removing the eyes, the beaks, and the insides of the heads. Vacuum seal them together with some salt, the onion, celery, and garlic. As I did bring my immersion circulator but not my vacuum sealer, I used a ziploc bag and the water displacement method.
Cook sous-vide at 85C/185F for one hour. Baby octopus requires less time than regular octopus (3 hours). Please note that I used 4 baby octopus of about 100 grams (3.5 oz) each before cleaning. If yours are bigger, you need to cook them longer for them to become tender.
The octopus will release quite a lot of liquid.
After cooking sous-vide, drain the octopus, and reserve the liquid.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. As the water used for cooking the moscardini was already almost at the boiling point, I used that water. The burners in an RV are very slow! Add salt and the linguine, and cook for about a minute less than the time indicated on the package for al dente. Meanwhile, chop the moscardini and sauté them in a frying pan in olive oil over high hea for a minute.
Add 60 ml (1/4 cup) of dry white wine, and stir for a minute.
Add the reserved juices, and bring to a boil.
Drain the pasta, and add to the moscardini.
Cook over high heat, stirring, until the juices have been absorbed by the pasta, about one minute.
Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add the parsley and toss to mix.
Serve at once on preheated plates.
Flashback
A delicious pasta dish from the Italian region of Abruzzo: chitarra pasta with lamb ragù.
Stefan's Gourmet Blog 
Looks very nice! And you are taken your cooking to another level, taking sous-vide with you on holiday.
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Stefan – I tip my hat off, even I’m not wearing one at the moment. Sous-Vide cooking at a camp site? Wow, wow, wow – what a dedication! The dish looks spectacular, by the way.
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I can see a TV series coming. “On the Road with Stefan and Kees”. “Two gourmets, eat and drink their way around Europe, one country at a time.” It’s a winner, for sure.
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Stefan, as everyone else has said, tip of the hat to you! This recipe looks amazing and in a camping no less.
Tangentially related, I see you are using an Anova for this recipe. How does it compare to your regular Sous Vide Supreme? I ask because I use a Supreme (identical to yours) but been wondering how it performs against an Anova. Did you notice any plus or minus for either of them?
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Stefan, my friend, you tickle me. I am surprised you didn’t take the vacuum sealer with you. 😮
This is a killer meal in all respects – local, fresh seafood, beautifully cooked with a flavorful sauce in a lovely atmosphere. I am assuming the weather was very accommodating. The only unanswered question is which of the wines you recently purchased did you pair with the meal?
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The weather is my kind of perfect now, 24C/75F and sunny. We had a Ribolla Gialla with it, which worked quite well, a white from Friuli made from a local grape. Many other whites would work as well.
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Sei riuscito a creare un capolavoro in una situazione non troppo agevole.
Questo piatto mi ricorda la zuppa di pesce che mia mamma era riuscita a preparare in campeggio a Pola tanti anni fa.
Stefan sei bravissimo.
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Looks amazing – that is serious campsite cooking!
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Greetings Stefan,
A mutual friend Conor Bofin mentioned you in a comment on my blog so I wanted to stop by and see yours.
VERY nice 🙂
Stay hungry 🙂
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That’s one very sophisticated camp kitchen!
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Pretty impressive to cook sous vide while camping in an RV!
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I find it actually easier than cooking on the feeble burners in the RV. The hard part is vacuum sealing with the water displacement method 😉
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I loved everything about this post! An RV by Venezia! Sous vide baby octopus! So jealous of your summer travels and cooking feats.
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